Adolescents who are critically, chronically, and terminally ill have been given little voice in their health care treatment. But the last three decades attitudes have begun to shift. The legal and professions as well as parents and children's advocates have started recognize that cognitively normal adolescents have decisionmaking capacity believe these patients ought to have the opportunity to participate in the toughest of health treatment decisions. Advances directives, if used sensitivity and care, could prove a valuable means of giving these older patients a say in their care.
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Weir et al. (1997) studied this question.