The Five Wishes document helps you express how you want to be treated if you are seriously ill and unable to speak for yourself. It is unique among all other living will and health agent forms because it looks to ALL of a person's needs: medical, personal, emotional and spiritual. Five Wishes also encourages discussing your wishes with your family and physician.
Five Wishes lets your family and doctors know:
1. Which person you want to make health care decisions for you when you can't make them.
2. The kind of medical treatment you want or don't want.
3. How comfortable you want to be.
4. How you want people to treat you.
5. What you want your loved ones to know.
The document speaks to people in their own language, not in "doctor speak" or "lawyer talk." It can be used in the living room instead of the emergency room. And it helps families talk with their physician about a subject that before was too hard to face.
For more information, go to
http://www.agingwithdignity.org/5wishes.html