End of Life Care Planning: How to Start a Conversation

If you would like to give peace of mind to yourself, your senior, and your whole family, having a conversation about end of life care planning is a good place to start – Even though this is a tender topic to discuss.
Being able to plan out end of life care options will help to honor your senior’s wishes if and when they are no longer able to speak for themselves. End of life care planning is an important part of ensuring both your senior’s satisfaction and dignity.

Talk About It

When this time comes, you and your family will want to be able to focus on spending quality time with your senior – Not the burden of planning. Talking about end of life care options now will help you do that, even though it can be difficult. We naturally do not want to talk about death or dying, but overcoming these fears has its benefits. Early discussions will also help you avoid any future issues if your senior cannot communicate or speak for themselves at any point in time.

Put Everything in Writing

After starting the conversation, the next step is to put your senior’s wishes into writing by way of an advanced directive and a living will. These items help determine difficult healthcare choices when they arise. Advanced directives will help tell healthcare providers the care your senior desires should they become to ill to communicate what they want. Living wills are an important part of an advanced directive that outline your senior’s wishes about which medical treatments should and should not be done. These documents will allow your senior to express their wishes and greatly improve the quality of their end of life care – Even if they cannot speak for themselves at that time.

Don’t Wait

We know it can be easy to delay the conversation about end of life care planning because tend to avoid talking about death or we feel that we are immune to it. So much in fact that 54% of seniors in North America put off planning because they were in good health, and another 48% said they trust their family members to handle their arrangements. But don’t wait too long to start talking about it and planning. Early discussions make organizing end of life care much easier and effective for both family members and caregivers (if your senior has in home care).
Please feel free to contact us here at Home Care Assistance if we can be of any help to your and your family while planning for end of life care.

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