PKD Life - Fall 2020 - 10

Ages & Stages

CAREGIVING

How to Approach
End-of-Life Care
With a Loved One
Tips for talking
about advance
care planning.

of the most difficult
O neconversations
a care-

giver can have with a loved
one with PKD is about how
that person wants to live out
the end of his or her life. But
those discussions are vital
and necessary, says Mary Beth
Callahan, APHSW-C, ACSW/
LCSW, a senior social worker
at Dallas Nephrology Associates. "It's really all about
sharing what matters most to
each of us," Callahan says.
Here are some tips on how
to have a gentle yet productive discussion about advance
care planning with your
loved one.

10

4 MAKE IT A SHARED
EXPERIENCE. If you've
never thought about your
own end-of-life wishes, Callahan suggests you each make
a plan together. "Everyone
age 21 and older should have
an advance directive
and a healthcare
proxy, regardless of
how healthy they
1 DO SOME PREP WORK. Advance care planning
are," she says. By
encompasses many issues, including choosing a
making your decihealthcare proxy (the person who will make healthsions at the same
care decisions if your loved one can't) and deciding
time, your loved one
whether quality or quantity of life is more important
won't feel like they're
to your loved one. To make sure you cover everything,
being "singled out"
Callahan suggests visiting The Conversation Project
to complete this task
(theconversationproject.org), which provides an
because they're ill.
advance care conversation starter kit that outlines

the kinds of questions you should ask.

2 FRAME THE CONVERSATION
POSITIVELY. If your loved one is
uncomfortable talking about dying,
assure him or her that death isn't
the main focus of advance care
planning. "Explain that it's really a
conversation about how they want
to live their life, which it is," Callahan says. "How we want to live
life through the end may change
based on many factors and needs
to be continually reviewed," she
adds. "Some people review it every
Thanksgiving, for instance."

5 PUT EVERYTHING IN
WRITING. Once the decisions
are made, file the appropriate
paperwork together. Callahan
recommends doing so via the
Prepare for Your Care website
(prepareforyourcare.org),
which allows you to create
advance directive and healthcare proxy forms for free. It
also explains how to make the
documents legal based on your
state's laws.

*

GARY WATERS/THE ISPOT

By Jessica Brown

3 SHARE YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
Appeal to the person by talking
about the position you'd be in if
your loved one didn't make endof-life decisions. "Advance care
planning is a gift a person gives to
their family," Callahan says. "Tell
your loved one that if something
unexpected happens, it will be
hard on you to have to guess what
they'd want."

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http://www.theconversationproject.org http://www.prepareforyourcare.org
PKD Life - Fall 2020

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