Thread by @drkathrynmannix

Thread:
Looking at the future, as you grow older or your health deteriorates:
🌈 What's your best hope?
😱 What's your worst dread?
👣 What steps can you take now that will help to ensure the future is closer to 🌈 than to 😱?
1/

Who will you need to talk to as you think about what steps to take? e.g.
Family &friends: people who have your wellbeing in mind.
Medical advisers: people you trust to give you truthful information.
Rights advisers: people to ensure your concerns receive a fair consideration.
2/

What do you need to find out?
🧭 The likely direction of your future health. How will it affect your independence, mobility, thinking, ability to do the things you love?
🧭 Any predictable health emergencies? Options for how these can be dealt with.
3/

🧭 What are the options for your treatment as your health deteriorates or for care as you need more help?
🧭 Can these happen at home? Would you want that? Can you choose how care is delivered?
🧭 Any treatment options you don't like? What would happen if you declined those?
4/

⚖ If you had to choose between maintaining your independence at home with modifications to your house and carers visiting regularly, or moving to live somewhere that is adapted for your changing needs and provides care staff, what would you prefer?
5/

⚖ If you discovered that you needed lots of treatment in hospital to keep you alive, would you accept that? Would you prefer less treatment even if it meant you didn't live for as long? This is a deeply personal decision. Who could advise you?
6/

⚖ If you found that your life expectancy was becoming short, would you prioritise living as long as possible or as comfortably as possible?
⚖ What influences your preferences about this?
⚖ Can you envisage circumstances that might change your balance of preferences?
7/

🤔 If you became too unwell to speak up for your wishes, is there someone (or several) you trust to speak on your behalf?
🤔 What legal steps are required to give them that authority? Unless you make it legally- binding they cannot speak for you.
8/

📝Would you like to make a record of your wishes and preferences that friends, family, carers, medical advisers can refer to in the future?
📝 This could be an informal 'wish list.' It could be a legally-binding Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment. You can make both.
9/

🌈 Towards the end of life, there may be symptoms of whatever illness/es are affecting our health.
🌈 It's usually possible to manage symptoms to stop them causing distress & let us carry on enjoying life.
🌈 Sometimes, medicines to manage symptoms may make us drowsy. So...
10/

⚖ If you needed to choose between feeling comfortable but being drowsy, or being more awake but having discomfort, what balance would you choose?
⚖ Would anything make you change the balance, towards being more awake or towards being more comfortable?
11/

🚑 Are there any medical interventions you would prefer to avoid? This might include blood transfusions, hospital admissions, surgery, use of a ventilator, use of CPR.
🚑 Some options may never be needed. Some may be more likely, depending on your particular health condition.
12/

🚦Are there specific treatments you don't want? You can discuss this with your medical advisers.
🚦It's a good idea to discuss with your beloveds, too, so they don't get a shock when they discover the decisions you've made. They don't have to agree with you. It's your life.
13/

🤔 This process of getting relevant, personal health information and pondering on the options to sketch out a plan can (& should) be repeated from time to time as we get older or as our health condition changes.
🤔 It's a process called 'Advance Care Planning' #ACP
14/

🌈 Advance Care Planning is about looking ahead with hope.
🌈It's about defining what's important to each of us.
🌈 It's as individual as we are.
🌈 It's a process that takes time, thought and trustworthy support.
🌈 There are no right or wrong answers.
15/

🌈 Part of Advance Care Planning is thinking about how we wish to be cared for as we reach the very end of life.
And that's important of course.
🌈 But it's so much more than that. It's a personal view of the way we want to live as health or aging change our fitness.
16/

🚦So this #DyingMattersWeek let's ponder our Advance Care Planning.
☕ Chat with our beloveds
📝Make an appointment to chat to our doctor
🌈 Think about what matters most to us in living as well as dying
⚖ Let's take charge of the balance between 🌈 & 😱
We're worth it.
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