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Five Wishes

Five Wishes is an advance directive covering medical issues, spiritual issues, personal issues, and legal issues in one document. The issues are called wishes. This advance directive was built because traditional advance directives left out a lot of concerns.

5 wishes
Five Wishes

What Makes Up A Five Wishes Advance Directive

  • A person to make health care decisions when you can
    1. Like a medical power of attorney
  • Scope of medical treatments desired, ad under what circumstances
    • Examples include feeding tubes, intubation, etc.
  • Level of comfort I seek
    • If you don’t like or want pain, here’s where you’d request pain management
  • How I want people to treat me
    • Here is where you ask for prayers or loved ones to be bedside at the time of death
  • What I want my loved ones to know
    • Here is where you would forgive family and friends for wrongs and how you want to be remembered

There are a lot of end-of-life issues. This document tries to address most of them. In other words, the AMD addresses the big issues that most of us want to address in the last days of our lives.

Other Names

5 Wishes

Purpose Of Five Wishes

A privately created expanded type of AMD taking into consideration many of the wishes dying patients have. The 5 Wishes AMD addresses more than medical treatment issues. It also addresses quality of life, emotional issues and religious beliefs. Five Wishes also helps to guide and structure discussions with the patient’s family and physician, making conversations easier.

Limitations

However, the standard document (and early iterations) does not address CPR.

Who Recognizes

The standard document falls within the legal requirements of most states (42 according to the 5 Wishes website). However, the document is easy to conform to the legal requirements of the remaining states.

Execution Requirements

Physician certification: two physicians determine the patient lacks the capacity to communicate or make decisions.

Signatures: maker (patient) and two witnesses, adults (over 18), non-family members, nonmedical professionals, and not financially involved with the patient.

Revocability

A competent maker (patient) can revoke or modify at any time.

Other Resources On Five Wishes

Check out their website here.

Also, see our section on advance directives here.