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Advance Healthcare Planning Important Also for Mental Health CareWashington DC, April 16, 2008—Today is National Healthcare Decisions Day, an annual event to focus attention on the need for all American adults to consider what their healthcare choices would be if they are unable to speak for themselves. Studies indicate that most Americans have still not engaged in this type of healthcare planning or have not yet put directions for such important decisionmaking in writing. Although the focus of advance healthcare planning has been largely on end-of-life medical decisionmaking, consumers of mental health services are also encouraged to record their treatment preferences in the event of a psychiatric crisis. The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law therefore joins dozens of other national advocacy and professional organizations in co-sponsoring National Healthcare Decisions Day 2008. The Bazelon Center urges people with mental illnesses to consider creating a psychiatric advance directive (PAD), a legal document stating the individual’s choices of mental health services and providers and naming a trusted agent to make future decisions about mental health treatment. A PAD can provide important information if its author experiences an acute episode of psychiatric illness and becomes unable to make or communicate decisions about treatment. The Bazelon Center has joined with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University Medical Center to create the National Resource Center on Psychiatric Advance Directives (NRC-PAD). The NRC-PAD website, www.nrc-pad.org, explains how to write a PAD and provides information from all 50 states about the legal effects of PAD documents. For more information about the NRC-PAD, contact Lewis Bossing at the Bazelon Center at (202) 467-5730 x 116 or lewisb@bazelon.org.
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