Facing up to the inevitable end

Survey: More Americans talking about late-life choices

Not only are more than half of Americans open to talking about end-of-life decisions with a loved one, but more people are actually having those conversations compared with just five years ago.

That’s according to a national survey released Tuesday by the Conversation Project, a Boston-based program dedicated to helping people talk about their wishes for end-of-life care.

The data show 53 percent of the roughly 1,000 Americans polled said they would feel relieved if a loved one started a discussion about how they want to live at the end of their lives, and 32 percent of them those polled are having these conversations.

The last Conversation Project survey, done in 2013, showed more than 90 percent of Americans thought it was important to have the conversation but only 27 percent had done it. That bit of progress was good news to Conversation Project director Kate DeBartolo.

“We want these conversations to happen around the kitchen table, not in the ICU.” Kate DeBartolo, Conversation Project director

“We want these conversations to happen around the kitchen table, not in the ICU,” she said.

“The goal is that everybody’s wishes for care are both expressed and respected,” DeBartolo said.

Roughly a year ago, the Connecticut Hospital Association launched the Care

Decisions Connecticut initiative, a statewide collaboration to empower patients to make their own end-of-life care decisions.

“We applaud the work of the Conversation Project to encourage people to talk about their end-of-life wishes,” said Elizabeth Beaudin, senior director of population health for the Connecticut Hospital Association. “It’s great news that people are becoming more aware of the importance of having conversations about end-of-life care.”

Locally, at least one palliative care specialist said she has noticed more discussion about end-of-life choices.

“Certainly, there has been a lot of work in palliative care to educate people, and we’ve gone far with

that,” said Dr. Kristin Edwards, medical director of palliative care at Bridgeport Hospital.

DeBartolo said the Conversation Project can’t take full credit for the progress. She said there are many possible factors — including the aging of the large baby-boomer population.

“There are some older adults who are telling me ‘I don’t love what’s happening with my parents. I want to have more of a say in what happens,’ ” DeBartolo said.

However, more progress is needed as the survey showed 68 percent of Americans have yet to have such conversations.

Edwards said that’s understandable.

She said, in her experience, when people do end up having these conversations “they really find it’s not as scary to talk about as they thought it would be.”