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Elder Care News
Spouses' Guesses About End-of-Life Wishes are Often
Not Accurate
Women no more accurate at predicting spouse's wishes
than men
By ElderLawAnswers.com
 June 29, 2007 - Most older adults who are married
name their spouses to make health care decisions for them should they
become incapacitated and unable to convey their wishes to care
providers. The common way to do this is through a durable power of
attorney for health care, also called a health care proxy. But how
accurate are spouses at knowing what their spouse would want to do in a
particular situation?
Spouses are often surprisingly inaccurate,
according to a new study by University of Wisconsin researchers.
Reviewing responses from 2,750 married couples who participated in the
2004 Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, the researchers concluded that
individuals often incorrectly identified their spouse's care
preferences.
For example, 28 percent of the study respondents
incorrectly named their spouse's preferences when presented with a
hypothetical scenario involving the spouse being in great pain and
having a low chance of survival. And 14 percent incorrectly identified
their spouse's preferences if the spouse were in minimal pain but were
cognitively impaired.
The researchers found support for their hypothesis
that respondents were projecting their own end-of-life preferences onto
their partner. "[Respondents] did not distinguish well between their own
preferences and the preferences of their spouses," the researchers
concluded.
But the researchers found no support for the
hypothesis that women are more accurate predictors of their spouse's
wishes than are men.
Among the researchers' possible explanations for
the apparent lack of knowledge of a spouse's end-of-life treatment
preferences were: a wish to avoid thinking about a partner's death; an
attempt to shield loved ones from potentially distressing concerns;
efforts to conceal preferences from one another if they think the spouse
will disapprove or change the preference; and the assumption that loved
ones know them well enough to make the right choices.
To read the full study, "Do Older Adults Know Their
Spouses' End-of-Life Treatment Preferences?" in Adobe pdf,
click here.
For more on the health care proxy,
click here.
>>
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