65 I'll Decide

65 I'll Decide!

How difficult is it to discuss goals of wellness and advanced care planning, when already late in life, or when acute sickness, chronic health issues or mental frailty occupy the centre stage of the persons life?

What if at age 65 every Canadian was obliged to start and document their first advanced care plan? What if each Canadian's wellness goals, pension age and advanced care planning we're mandated to intersect at age 65?

How different would we grow older as individuals, if just as there are recognized times to be able to drive, vote, buy alcohol or receive a pension......there is also an age at which, if not already started, each person documents their first advanced care plan? How different would this be if, we as provinces and a nation, imbedded advanced care planning so deep in medical guidelines, our legislation, our social supports and our societal norms, that this were integral to each persons identity, aging, wellness and citizenship?

Would then increasing years and new disease then more easily share life's stage of wellness? Are then not all the actors now already on stage, and only the roles being reinterpreted by the aging director?

Our clinic is already asking our patients of 65 and over to tell us about their goals in life and at it's end. We partner with Hospice to draw on community experience and expertise. The interest has been great! The tool we have found most useful to date has been group meetings. The groups stories automatically do the heavy lifting! Focus shifts from aging and disease, to aging and wellness when we deliberately listen to bucket list and dying....

Let us now as a Nation embrace each person starting to decide their forever after, at 65!