Explore a Topic: Advance Directives

Websites / Resources

Aging with Dignity
Five Wishes

Five Wishes is an advance directive created by Aging with Dignity, a non-profit organization whose mission is to help older adults “plan and receive the care (they) deserve.”

AARP (American Association of Retired Persons):
Talking about Your Final Wishes

A discussion of the types of decisions you should consider: where do you want to die, what kind of medical treatment do you want, what kind of medical treatment do you not want, where do you want to be buried. The website emphasizes making your wishes clear to your family and your doctor.

District of Columbia Hospital Association
Combined Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care and Living Will for use in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.

Caring Connections — State-specific advance directives

Obtain copies of Advance Directive forms for your state

QuickBibs

Up-to-date bibliographies on the following topics are drawn from our ETHXWeb database:

• Advance Directives (available full text online)
• Palliative Care
• Pain Management
• Health decisions for adolescents and children (youth)
• Advance Directives relating to the elderly and/or those with dementia

Additional quickbibs are available at http://bioethics.georgetown.edu/resources/quickbibs/. Simply click on a topic and the bibliography will be generated.

Reference Help

• Telephone: +1-202-687-3885
• Email bioethics@georgetown.edu 
• Request a bibliographic search

Database Resources

To read more about advance directives and advance health care planning from a variety of sources including the ethics literature, law journals, reports, etc. please visit our ETHXWeb Database Advanced Search page.

• Enter 20.5.4 (our classification number for advance directives) in the Keyword/General Subject Box and limit your search as you wish using the drop down menus.

or, you may use the Boolean Search page

• Enter 20.5.4 (our classification number for advance directives) in the search box and combine it using the AND operator with any other topic you have in mind, e.g., for older persons or persons with dementia including Alzheimer’s Disease, your search strategy could be: 20.5.4 and (Alzheimer+ or dement+ or 9.5.2)
  
• The + is a truncation symbol and can be used to represent any number of letters