The end of life is obviously a difficult period. In such context, health care decisions have to be taken and our brain may not be able to perform as it should.
Most seriously ill patients value comfort and dignity over life extension, but routine care often leads to treatment oriented toward extending life. Deviating from this life-extending norm requires that someone actively request or suggest doing so.Specifying one’s goals of care in the living will component of an advance directive provides patients with an opportunity to counter this tendency. However, the text and structure of commonly used advance directives carry some of the same implicit biases that tend to favor life extension in the absence of advance directives.Halpern et al. show that people are strongly influenced by default options in advanced directives. Without default, 66% prefer confort over life extension. With a default option, 77% prefer not to extend life, even after reconsideration and being informed over the default.
Food for thought. Behavioral economics is paving the way for new understanding of choices that involve large amount of resources.
