▪ Living wills and other advance directives currently play a limited role in medical decision
making. A new federal law, the Patient Self-Determination Act, will require health care …

Background The use of advance directives is recommended so that people can determine
the medical care they will receive when they are no longer competent, but the effectiveness …

Background: Despite growing support for advance directives, there are few data validating
their utility. We conducted this study to determine if the type of advance directive influences …

Nearly four decades ago, Luis Kuntner proposed the living will in response to a tragic case
of son shooting his mother who was dying of cancer and in pain and on a ventilator. A living …

Background Recent discussions about health care reform have raised questions regarding
the value of advance directives. Methods We used data from survey proxies in the Health …

Surveys have shown that a substantial proportion of the population has prepared an
advance directive. The purpose of this exploratory study was to assess the existence and …

Background: Although advance medical directives, such as living wills and durable powers
of attorney for health care, are by themselves imperfect instruments for expressing patients' …

Resolution of long-standing debates about the role and impact of advance directives—living
wills and powers of attorney for health care—has been hampered by a dearth of appropriate …

The quality and quantity of advance directives for healthy older people need to increase.
Quality will improve with literal interpretations of do‐not‐resuscitate orders and more …

A framework in which directives operate, we must heed empirical research. Studies indicate
that patients' wishes about life-sustaining treatments are not entirely stable over time, though …