Articles Tagged with white plains elder law attorney

In a previous post titled Health Care Proxy: What is Their Role in My Health Care Decisionmaking?, we discussed the role of health care proxies in your end of life planning and what capabilities they have regarding your medical treatment in the event you are not able to make your own decisions due to incapacity. In New York, naming a health care proxy is commonly done along with the formation of a living will. A living will is another type of advanced directive, it is a written statement that outlines what the patient seeks to have done regarding his or her medical treatment, in the event of incapacity or unconscious. A health care proxy will carry out the terms of a living will when there is one on record, instead of making the medical decisions for the patient which is their traditional role. A living will puts the patient’s loved ones on notice of what the patient’s wishes are and ensures they are carried out.

Interestingly, in New York, legislation has not given guidance as to the right of an incapacitated individual to have their last rights respected. However, courts in New York will, through clear and convincing evidence, attempt to respect those wishes if there is a way for them to be known, i.e. through a written document such as a living will. In the living will, you can state which treatments you wish to refuse in the event that they are being considered for treating your condition. Many forum living wills state that in the event of irreversible physical or mental condition, either due to terminal illness, permanent unconscious condition, or minimal consciousness but inability to make decisions, the patient can decide whether they wish for treatment to be withheld. You can also indicate in which scenarios, such as cardiac resuscitation, artificial feeding, mechanical respiration or refusal of antibiotics, you wish for treatment to be administered or withheld.

When it comes to terminal illness, majority of doctors are quick to respect the wishes of a patient who has completed a living will. Terminal illness is generally the most common and uncontroversial example of a situation where a patient’s living will being recognized by the court. However, situations such as permanent disability have been more difficult to apply living wills to. While some people view disability as an intolerable condition in which they would rather cease living than to have a lesser quality of life, doctors have a difficult time because many people will show signs of improvement over time in situations such as a traumatic accident or episode in which they are left in a lesser state than before.

SIMPLE GUIDELINES, EASY TO UNDERSTAND AND FOLLOW

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) released guidelines to help prevent and mitigate falls among senior citizens in 2012. The CDC program is called STEADI, an acronym coming from the full title Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths and Injuries. Research shows that falls are the leading cause of injuries, death and emergency room visits for trauma. If a senior citizen falls it can literally be a traumatic, life altering event or even a deadly one. The silver lining is that many falls are preventable. Last year the Obama Administration announced that that the White House Conference on Aging, the Administration on Aging awarded $4 million in various grants to help expand STEADI. It is estimated that the increased funding will help reach an additional 18,000 at risk senior citizens. It is further hoped that the funding will increase participation in evidence based community programs and improve the overall programs long term viability. The CDC developed these guidelines in conjunction with British and American Geriatric Societies.

The American and British Geriatric Societies already had clinical practice guidelines in place to better define the various risk factors in falls by senior citizens. The CDC guidelines contain basic information about falls, methods to begin conversations with seniors, balance assessment tests, gait assessment tests along with instructional videos for the gait and balance tests and even case studies of the the fall risks for different senior citizens. The program and recommendations are all inclusive in that the STEADI program at the CDC website has a testing protocol for professional medical care providers, to information about webinars and other instructional videos, material for senior citizens themselves, important facts about falls, referral forms, posters for professional establishments, with posters also available in Spanish and Chinese and most importantly, it has a toolkit for medical professionals.

Contact Information