Les directives anticipées et le désir de maîtrise de sa fin de vie

Advance directives are an effective mean of transmitting adult's wishes regarding the continuation, limitation, discontinuation or refusal of treatment. According to the terms of the Claeys-Leonetti law, doctors have to follow the express wishes contained in advance care directives. Moreover, this law removed any specific duration of validity for living wills. Thus, we could assume that people have a way to master their end of life. However, the advance directives have weaknesses. For instance, there is a lack of reliability and, in some cases, doctors can refuse to apply this document. To put it in a nutshell, the fact that people want to master their end of life in writing living wills appears to be a delusion.