Treatment Choices at the End of Life: A Comparison of Decisions by Older Patients and Their Physician-Selected Proxies

Doctors are increasingly faced with the ethical dilemma of making end-of-life medical care decisions for older patients who are decisionally incapacitated. Most often, they rely on family to assist them in choosing what the patient would have wanted. In this vignette-based study, the ability of proxies to choose as the patients reported they would have chosen is called into question. Implications for the use of advance directives for end-of-life care and avenues for needed research are discussed.