Where You Can Start: How to Get Involved:

Here are some of the ways we can help:

  • My Way Cards provide a solution to create your own living wills, or help loved ones with theirs.
  • Caring Advocates can provide an evaluation, and advice for your future planning needs.
  • Caring Advocates can also provide a service called Interview By Internet to help you ensure the posterity of your end-of-life decisions

  1. Your Caring Advocates Certified Planning Professional will evaluate you regarding whether a Physician Order for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST); and/or the combination, Advance Directive to Permit Natural Dying and Physician's Orders to Permit Natural Dying (AD/PO-PND) are appropriate for you. Click here to download an Evaluation Copy. (Many people find it a good idea to look this over before visiting with your Planning Professional or Physician.)
    1. Did you have mental ability to make end-of-life medical and care decisions?
    2. Were you fully informed about the Physician's Orders to Permit Natural Dying?
    3. Did you willingly give competent, voluntary consent to the Physician's Orders to Permit Natural Dying? (Opinions A, B, & C must be confirmed by your personal Physician.)
    4. Did you want to invoke an irrevocable (Ulysses contract) for withholding food and fluid so that your dying and suffering will not be prolonged? (We can clarify this option.)
  2. Caring Advocates will provide you with a DVD of your interview above so the video can be used as proof in the event others challenge your wishes after you are no longer competent.
  3. Your Planning Professional will help complete your Advance Directive to Permit Natural Dying and guide you to making it legally valid by the signatures of qualified witnesses.
  4. Your Planning Professional will also explain why you might want to consider signing and distributing a Patient/ Proxy Contract of Agreement while you wait to copy and distribute your AD/PO-PND until it is time to Permit Natural Dying.
  5. With your permission, your Planning Professional can send a Physician a letter to become your Implementing Physician. It asks him/her to sign your PO-PND, cites laws that provide your Physician legal immunity, and states that distributing PO-PND complies with HIPAA.
  6. Caring Advocates will create a life-time registration of your AD-PND/PO-PND and provide you with a wallet card so that others can retrieve your documents by Internet download or by FAX on a 24/7 basis. Then, others can immediately learn about your end-of-life wishes. We can help you order "alert jewelry," which will reflect the order that first responders need to know, including DNR (No CPR; Do Not Attempt Resuscitation), but which you should NOT wear until your Proxy or your Physician determines that it is time to Permit Natural Dying. In California, two other orders are important and should be included: "No IVs or Oral Hydration," and "Palliative Sedation-OK" since both items were "gutted" from California's "Terminal Patients Right to Know Act." (See Chapter 2 in the book Peaceful Transitions.) An alert bracelet, charm, or necklace with a medallion is highly recommended for all states since many EMTs and paramedics are trained to respond to its orders if your PO-PND cannot be immediately found on the refrigerator door.
  7. Caring Advocates will send you the following books, CDs, and DVDs:
    1. The BEST WAY to Say Goodbye: A Legal Peaceful Choice at the End of Life by Stanley A. Terman, PhD, MD, with Michael Evans, JD, MSW, and Ronald Miller, MD's book-within-a-book self-help manual and comprehensive resource.
    2. On Natural Dying, a 2-CD, 2- DVD set that includes radio interviews, patient stories and discussions of Advance Care Planning, thirst control, autonomy, and social justice.
    3. Peaceful Transitions: An Ironclad Strategy to Die When and How YOU Want by Stanley A. Terman, PhD, MD's guide to successful planning your final navigation.
    4. Dying Wishes documentary DVD: a pancreatic cancer patient's peaceful transition.
    5. Graceful Passages: A Companion for Living and Dying, a book and 2-CD Set by Michael Stillwater and Gary Malkin that includes calming music and spiritual narrations.
  8. Caring Advocates' team is available to provide advice and support for your Proxy when the time comes to implement the Physician's Orders to Permit Natural Dying.
  9. Caring Advocates team will send you a Thirst Reduction Aid Kit (TRAK) to effectively reduce or eliminate the symptoms of dry mouth.
  10. Optional: Caring Advocates will consider requests to designate two people on our team as your legally designated Proxies (Agent/Surrogate/Durable Power of Attorney) so you can be certain that someone will be there to speak for you, if you cannot speak for yourself.

Click here for information about your free, 5-minute telephone conversation, or call Stacy at 1.800.64.PEACE (647.3223) to discuss your options for help.




Webinar Signup:
Email:
Name:
Organization:
Phone number:
Street Address:
City/State:
Message:

Which of these categories characterizes you: Patient, Proxy, Health Care Provider, Attorney, Pastoral Counselor, Policy/Law Maker, Advance Care Planner, Ombudsman, Nurse, Social Worker, Bioethicist, Caregiver, Psychologist, Caregiver, Physician Assistant, other? (If listing more than one, do so in order of current importance.)
Category: