Globe Syndicate

For release Friday July 01, 2005

The Sandwich Generation . . . Helping Your Aging Parents

by Carol Abaya, M.A.

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT DO I WANT?

Question: I am 82 and have a legal document for a Living Will. My wife, 72, refuses to put her wishes in writing. She asks, “What if I say I don’t want machines or a feeding tube and then change my mind if something bad happens?”

Answer: A Living Will provides medical and emotional guidance and legal decision making authority to a third person at such time as the patient cannot make his/her own decisions. As long as a person can make, what is called, an ‘informed decision,’ he/she can do so. And the person can change his/her mind even several times.

Both my parents (94 and 92, at the time) made their own end-of-life decisions -- to go peacefully on their own terms. In the event, they would not have been able to make a decision, we knew what they wanted -- and did not want.

Because of the many questions arising from the Schiavo case, here are some guidelines and questions to ask yourself before signing a Living Will.

1. What are your own quality of life values and wishes?

2. How do you want to live your last years, days or hours?

3. Would you want to be bedridden and dependent on others for virtually everything? (Like Christopher Reeves.)

4. Would you want to be hooked up to a respirator, a feeding tube, or a dialysis machine?

5. If yes to #4, would you want to be hooked up for a long period of time? Or only for short term emergencies? You need to be specific.

6. If you have a chronic, degenerative illness, and have a possibly life threatening heart attack or stroke, do you want to be resuscitated? Or do you want to be left alone to die?

7. If treatment is “futile”, do you want that treatment or procedure? The Supreme Court says a person has the constitutional right to refuse treatment and die.

Each person’s criteria for quality of life decisions are different. But everyone should discuss their criteria with key family members, sign a legal Living Will document written by a qualified elder law attorney, and choose a trusted person to make decisions according to his/her own values.

A person who does not have a written Living Will places an unconscionable burden on family members.

Some key terms: prognosis: medical evaluation of a person’s condition and the likelihood of the person getting better.

Futile treatment: medical treatments (including hydration, nutrition, dialysis, respirator) that will never improve the patient’s basic current condition.

Informed consent: the understanding of the prognosis and decision for treatment or for no treatment.

Trustworthy evidence: in lieu of a written Living Will, evidence the family can present that details a patient’s wishes.

Nutrition: Nutrition provided by a feeding tube is completely artificial and manufactured by a drug company. Such nutrition has nothing to do with what we consider “food.”

Are you juggling doing errands for your aging parents, your children, yourself and working at the same time? Are you tired, stressed out and upset that your once vibrant parent is now frail and needy?

Do you feel alone? Rest assured you are not alone! The Sandwich Generation is dedicated to the 50 million Americans who may have elder/parent care concerns and/or responsibilities.

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Do you have a question? Send it in. Although letters cannot be answered individually, appropriate letters will be answered in this column whenever possible. Letters may be edited. Send letters to Ms. Carol Abaya, mail direct to her at PO Box 132, Wickatunk, NJ 07765-0132 or contact her through her web site: thesandwichgeneration.com.

Carol Abaya is an international-award-winning journalist and creator of the unique magazine The Sandwich Generation: You & Your Aging Parents.

NOTES TO EDITORS: text = 549 words; other material = 160 words

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