Advanced Directives and End-of-Life Decision Making: The Five Wishes A Learning Module for Effective Social Work Practice with Older Adults Dr. Robin P. Bonifas, MSW, PhD Arizona State University School of Social Work

Acknowledgements The development of this curriculum module was made possible through a Gero Innovations Grant from the CSWE Gero-Ed Center's Master's Advanced Curriculum (MAC) Project and the John A. Hartford Foundation.

Content of This Learning Module Is Based on Material Provided By Aging with Dignity. Retrieved March 15, 2009 from http://www.agingwithdignity.org

The Five Wishes Planning for and even discussing end-of-life or serious illness is difficult for most people! The Five Wishes is a tool that can help people express how they want to be treated if they are seriously ill and unable to speak for themselves.  It is considered 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. This is especially relevant for social work because it supports the needs of the whole person. 

The Five Wishes The Five Wishes encourages people to discuss their wishes with their family and physician. The Five Wishes helps individuals let their family and doctors know: Which person they want to make health care decisions for them when they can't make them. The kind of medical treatment they want or don't want. How comfortable they want to be. How they want people to treat them. What they want their loved ones to know.

The Five Wishes Strengths of this document are: It 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.  It helps families talk with their physician about a difficult subject. The Five Wishes was introduced and originally distributed with support from a generous grant by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care.

The Five Wishes is an Approved Advanced Directive in 42 States Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming

The Five Wishes has been Translated into 26 Languages Albanian Arabic Bengali Chinese-Traditional Chinese-Simplified Croatian English French German Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hmong Ilocano Italian Japanese Korean Polish Portuguese Russian Somali Spanish Tagalog Urdu Vietnamese

Let’s look at the Five Wishes form!

The Five Wishes Form http://www.agingwithdignity.org/5wishes .pdf Order your own copies from: https://secure3.electronet.net/agingwithd ignity/subCategory.cfm?SID=3&category _ID=1 Limited supplies of bilingual forms are available for free!

Homework Assignment Referring to the Five Wishes form on your computer, complete it for yourself (you won’t be able to print out the form, just jot down your answers). Come to class next week prepared to discuss your experience. You do not need to share your personal wishes, just talk about what the experience was like and whether or not your found the form helpful. Would this tool be helpful for your clients?