One in Four Elderly Americans Need A Living Will

According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, one-fourth of elderly Americans need someone else to make end-of-life medical decisions for them.

Researchers analyzed data between 2000 and 2006 and found that 83% of elderly individuals who executed living wills actually got the limited end-of-life care that they requested. The study also found that very few elderly individuals actually wanted heroic actions to be taken to save their lives.

The issue of end-of-life care surfaced in the health care debate. A provision of the proposed legislation would have enabled Medicare to pay doctors for talking to patients about living wills. However, the proposal was dropped due to unfavorable attention received by the provision.

See Kaiser Health News, Findings Support Value of Advance Directives, Living Wills, and Other Means of Making End-of-Life Treatment Preferences Known, April 1, 2010.