Abstract
Patients' right to decide what happens to their bodies, especially around the end
of life, is enshrined in legislation across the world, but questions often arise about
whether a patient is capable of meaningfully participating in such decisions. Because
of uncertainties about capacity, care providers and administrative agencies often
must decide whether to honor, or even to elicit, patients' wishes. General decision-making
capacity has been well studied, but few clear protocols exist for ascertaining capacity
at the end of life. Without clear guidelines about how to assess capacity, medical
staff may ignore assessment and operate from invalid assumptions. In the interests
of protecting patients' agency, we propose a straightforward protocol for assessing
capacity to make decisions about end-of-life interventions.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 26, 2017
Footnotes
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of AMDA - The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
