A natural death act is a form of a living will be supported by a statutory enforcement. The common form of the act is a declaration to withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment in terminal state occurrence. A person must sign it over 18 years of age and in a state that allows for understanding the information. Minor specifications of the acts vary across states. Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment is a form used by individuals with serious health conditions that contain important end-of-life directives and treatments accepted or refused by them.
Its advantages include the ease of completion and lack of legal restrictions. POLST ensures the compliance of healthcare providers with a person’s wishes and promotes meaningful communication between stakeholders. Do-Not-Resuscitate Directives are sets of orders executed by patients’ requests upon admission to a healthcare facility. The directives contain patients’ statements regarding their preferences on resuscitative measures.
Informed consent is a specific form of agreement between a patient and a physician intended to ensure the legality of treatment. Unlike common consent, informed consent necessarily includes two components – the delivery of information sufficient to understand important details of treatment to the patient and the confirmation by the patient of his or her agreement to participate in the procedure.
The right to consent also includes the right to refuse giving consent, which the patient retains even after he or she has given primary consent (Wheeler, 2012). The patient can be denied the refusal of therapy if such a decision threatens the state of public health or compromises minor dependents’ protection. Nursing practices mostly rely on oral and inferred consent (Butts & Rich, 2016). When another practitioner performs a procedure, written consent is a common solution.
References
Butts, J. B., & Rich, K. R. (2016). Nursing ethics (4th ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Wheeler, H. (2012). Law, ethics, and professional issues for nursing: A reflective and portfolio-building approach. New York, NY: Routledge.