A method for increasing elders' use of advance directives.

Most published studies report that few elderly people have recorded advance directives (AD). We studied the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary intervention designed to help ambulatory frail elders to record AD. In collaboration with physicians and a trained lay volunteer, a social worker provided information and counseling to the elderly subjects, to their families, and to their proxies in a series of visits to a geriatric evaluation and management (GEM) clinic. Seventy-one percent of the subjects recorded AD. Of these, 96% named a proxy, and 83% recorded specific treatment preferences.