What is the Five Wishes Document and Is It Right for Your Dad?
What do you know about the Five Wishes document? If you haven’t heard of it, you should become acquainted with it. If you have heard of it, have you considered it for your dad? Many people find it to be the easiest way to plan for emergency health issues and create a comprehensive care plan when aging at home.
What is the Five Wishes Document?
Elderly Care Chester, PA: Five Wishes Document
A non-profit organization came up with a five-part document that covers the things you want as you age. It’s an advance care planning document to share with medical professionals and your family. This advance directive or living will goes behind medical desires and goes into emotional and spiritual ones, too.
What is covered in a Five Wishes document? The first “wish” is the name of the person you would want acting on your behalf if you couldn’t make medical decisions or care decisions on your own.
The second “wish” involves life support and whether you would want to be resuscitated or if you want a DNR in place. It also discusses things like end-of-life care, pain management, dialysis, etc. Wishes three and four continue this with the treatments you’d want if you were sick or infirm, such as sponge baths, moisturizers, personal care, etc.
In the third and fourth wishes, your dad would list if he wants family members to provide his care or if he’d rather have a professional caregiver. He could add restrictions like he wants male vs. female caregivers for personal care/bathing tasks or not.
The fifth wish covers the things you’d want to be shared with others and what you’d want when it comes to burial vs. cremation and where you’d want your ashes to be spread or to be buried.
Is There an Alternative?
The Five Wishes document is just an advance directive. If your dad wants to make plans for his care as he ages and if he had a medical emergency, he could see a lawyer and have either form drawn up.
What’s most important is that he has documentation that chooses someone to act on his behalf. Without a legal representative for his medical wishes, he is at risk of doctors making the choices for him. Make sure he talks to a lawyer to get the proper paperwork in place.
After completing a Five Wishes document, you’ll know what your dad wants when it comes to elderly care services. You can call an elderly care agency with confidence and make the arrangements that your dad wants and needs.
If you or an aging loved one are considering Elderly Care in Chester, PA please contact the caring staff at True Direct Home Health Care today.
Doc, as he is called by everyone - staff, patients and clients - first experienced home health care and hospice care while as a colleg student at King's College as he cared for his mother every day while she first battled COPD and then lung cancer. It was during this time that he came to understand that caring for a patient was more than just clinical expertise.
"Admittedly, my strongest attribute is my communication skills and the simple fact that I love to help people. Even the smallest thing you can do for someone really can mean so much to them long term. In fact, it could change them forever. That's what providing quality personal home health care should be all about."
In his spare time, he cooks for homeless shelters and children's music and arts events. He also is highly involved in his local youth sports soccer academy as a coach and Board member.
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