[Advanced directives document and neurologist-patient relationship]

Dirección Médica de Fundació ACE, Instituto Català de Neurociències Aplicades, Barcelona. ace@fundacioace.com

Perception of health and disease, pain and suffering, quality of life, personal relationships, privacy and intimacy, culture and social values, can now be stated in a written document, by way of a living will, giving legal legitimacy to each patient's way of being and understanding life, to be used when the subject cannot express it by him/herself. In this way, the patients will participate in the therapeutic process and will incorporate their desires and decisions through the Informed Consent and the Advanced Directives Document (ADD). Both documents translate and indicate how to treat and care for a patient who will progressively lose his/her cognitive faculties and others will decided for him/her, in the case of dementias. The basis of ADD is respect and promotion of the patient's autonomy, prolonging his/her right to decide in the stages in which he/she cannot do it. It consists in some instructions or orientations for the patient to be cared for in a certain way, according to his/her will. To this effect, a representative will be named who will act in the subject's name and who will help to interpret and make decisions when the patient cannot. Specifically, in Alzheimer's disease, ADD allows the patient to decide, in full lucidity, freedom and autonomy, how to live a progressive and irreversible disease. Explicit mention can be made to the will of making his/her disease known publically or not, the care of its aspect, privacy, type of care, whether institutionalized or home care, limitation of visits, treatment intensity and prolongation, palliative cares, donation of biological samples, participation in drug clinical trials.

PMID: 15719290 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]