End of Life Issues

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Basics

• Summary
• Start Here

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• Related Issues
• Specifics

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Research

• Clinical Trials
• Journal Articles

Resources

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For You

• Patient Handouts

Summary

Planning for the end of life can be difficult. But by deciding what end-of-life care best suits your needs when you are healthy, you can help those close to you make the right choices when the time comes.

End-of-life planning usually includes making choices about the following:

• The goals of care (for example, whether to use certain medicines during the last days of life)
• Where you want to spend your final days
• Which treatments for end-of-life care you wish to receive
• What type of palliative care and hospice care you wish to receive

Advance directives can help make your wishes clear to your family and health care providers.

Start Here

• Advanced Illness: Holding on and Letting Go (Family Caregiver Alliance)
• End of Life (National Institute on Aging)
• End-of-Life Care for People Who Have Cancer (National Cancer Institute) Also in Spanish
• Last Days of Life (National Cancer Institute) Also in Spanish
• Nearing the End of Life (American Cancer Society) Also in Spanish
• Providing Care and Comfort at the End of Life (National Institute on Aging) Also in Spanish

Related Issues

• Living Well with a Serious Illness (American College of Physicians) - PDF
• Planning Your Own Funeral (Federal Trade Commission) Also in Spanish
• Shopping for Funeral Services (Federal Trade Commission) Also in Spanish
• Types of Funerals (Federal Trade Commission) Also in Spanish
• What to Do after Someone Dies (National Institute on Aging) Also in Spanish

Specifics

• Advanced Illness: Feeding Tubes and Ventilators (Family Caregiver Alliance) Also in Spanish
• Artificial Hydration and Nutrition (American Academy of Family Physicians) Also in Spanish
• Coping with Advanced Cancer: Choices for Care Near the End of Life (National Cancer Institute)
• End of Life Care (AGS Health in Aging Foundation)
• End-of-Life Care for People with Dementia (National Institute on Aging) Also in Spanish
• Making Decisions for Someone at the End of Life (National Institute on Aging) Also in Spanish
• Young People Facing End-of-Life Care Decisions (National Cancer Institute)

Clinical Trials

• ClinicalTrials.gov: Terminal Care (National Institutes of Health)

Journal Articles References and abstracts from MEDLINE/PubMed (National Library of Medicine)

• Article: Surveillance for Violent Deaths - National Violent Death Reporting System, 48...
• Article: Knowledge gaps in the definition and determination of death.
• Article: Variability in criteria for death determination in the intensive care unit.
• End of Life Issues -- see more articles

Find an Expert

• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
• National Institute of Nursing Research

Patient Handouts

• Deciding about treatments that prolong life (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Do-not-resuscitate order (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish
• Palliative care - what the final days are like (Medical Encyclopedia) Also in Spanish