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Advance Directives in Palliative Care: The French Case
Le Divenah A1*, Bril I2 and David S3,41Team for involvement vulnerable patients and their adaptation, Hôpital Foch, 92151 Suresnes, France
2Laboratoire Languages and Civilizations Oral Tradition, LACITO-CNRS; School Practice of High Studies, 75005 Paris, France
3Direction Human Resources AP-HP and Public Health and Health Economics, Lariboisière Hospital, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux of Paris (AP-HP), 75010 Paris, France
4Laboratory of Medical Ethics, EA4569, University Paris Descartes and Scientific Management Centre Mines Paris Tech, School for Advanced Studies in Public Health, 35000 Rennes, France
- *Corresponding Author:
- Le Divenah A
Team for involvement vulnerable patients and their adaptation|
Hôpital Foch, 92151 Suresnes, France
Tel: 33683362625
Email: mailto:aude.ledivenah@nck.aphp.fr
Received date: August 11, 2014; Accepted date: November 04, 2014; Published date: November 12, 2014
Citation: Le Divenah A, Bril I, David S (2014) Advance Directives in Palliative Care: The French Case. J Palliat Care Med 4:197. doi:10.4172/2165-7386.1000197
Copyright: 2014 Le Divenah A, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
“Advance directives” are an important tool for documenting the wishes of end-of-life patients who are no longer in a position to take decisions relating to their medical care. In France, the legal status of advance directives was enacted in 2005; the recent update of the project was abandoned due to controversies. This article aims at discussing how such advance directives should be drafted; they are difficult for patients to write precisely because of their health condition. However, they are essential documents for physicians allowing them to take medical decisions in accordance with the will of terminally ill patients. Discussion of such issues during palliative care should help patient state their wishes and their advance directives. Implementing these directives is an important issue under discussion in France.
