Five Wishes for When You're Too Sick to Make Decisions

By Arlene F. Harder, MA, MFT

Five Wishes is possibly the best directive for advanced care when you are no longer able to make health decisions for yourself and it has captured the hearts and minds of people across the country. Best of all, it is easy to understand and simple to use, as well as a gift to your family members and friends so that they won't have to guess what you want. .

Even though you may live in one of the few states where Part A is not accepted as a legal document, it is a good tool for thinking through durable power of attorney for health care issues. Even if you can't use it in some states, you can often get a legal form from most hospitals and some doctor's offices.

Part B is perhaps one of the strongest features of Five Wishes because it goes into comfort and remembrance issues.

The document was designed by the Commission on Aging with Dignity, which is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1996 to affirm and safeguard human dignity, and to promote better care of the dying. The shortened name, Aging with Dignity, is now the Five Wishes parent organization.

For many years we reprinted the full text so you would know what was included in the form, even though you needed to sign the original form for it to be legal. However, the content has changed since I first put it online and recently I received an e-mail noting that some of the information we had was no longer correct. So I have decided to share with you the following information and encourage you to contact these resources directly rather than reprint the form.

There are more than 13 million copies of Five Wishes that have been distributed via 15,000 partner organizations nationwide. It meets the legal requirements of 43 states, including the District of Columbia, and is useful in all 50.

The remaining non-Five Wishes states are those that have additional noticing/warning requirements or specify certain forms be used.

Five Wishes is available in 23 languages and in Braille.

See the many new and additional informational resources available at Aging With Dignity, where they continue to provide free copies of Five Wishes to educators and in case of financial hardship, but otherwise, individual copies are $5 each, but only $1 each in quantities of 25 or more.

You can read the latest version of Five Wishes on the Aging With Dignity website.

I strongly suggest you don't put off getting and signing this document. Some day it will be too late, just as it is too late to sign a will after you have died. I realize it is easy to procrastinate doing this, but your family will greatly appreciate your effort. And if you do get sick (as sooner or later we all will), you will feel better knowing that the chances of being taken care of as you would like to be taken care of are greatly improved.