Talking With Your Older Patient: A Clinician's Handbook by National Institute of Aging - HTML preview

Values About Health

Although physicians typically focus primarily on diagnosing and treating disease, older people generally care most about maintaining the quality of their lives. They are not necessarily preoccupied with death. In fact, many older people are relatively accepting of the prospect of death and seek chiefly to make the most of their remaining years. Younger family members, who commonly must make life-and-death decisions when an older person is incapacitated, may be unaware of the patient’s views and preferences.