BMJ  2007;334:608 (24 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.334.7594.608-b

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New tool makes good decisions for incapacitated patients

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

When patients can't make their own treatment decisions, a surrogate can be asked to make decisions for them. Surrogates are usually close family members who know and love the patient, so it makes sense for them to step in at times of crisis. Now researchers from the US have developed a tool that seems to be as accurate as a surrogate at predicting what patients want.

The tool uses the simple and reasonably well tested notion that most patients will want a treatment if there's a fair chance (defined as 1% in this study) that they will end up in a state of recovery that allows them to reason, remember, and communicate. If not, they would want the treatment withheld.

Researchers tested their tool in 47 hypothetical scenarios from 16 published studies, making decisions based entirely on the likely prognosis for the patient. The tool accurately predicted patients' preferences 78.5% . . . [Full text of this article]


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