“Advance care planning in life-limiting illnesses”

Keywords: palliative care, communication, care provision, final stage of life, advance care planning, COPD

It is important that the wishes of patients with life-limiting illnesses about care and treatment during the final stage of life are being discussed in a timely manner, so that this patient group can be offered good care. This process, which is called advance care planning (ACP), rarely takes place in clinical practice, though. This ACP study tries to initiate this process in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A one-time consultation with a trained pulmonary nurse was shown to be a key factor in this. After this consultation, patients were shown to have more conversations with their pulmonologist about the future care they wished to receive. The quality of communication about care offered during the final stage of their lives was also shown to have improved.