ODL 277: Dementia and Planning for the Future: Living Wills, Goals of Care, Advance Directives, and Honoring People’s Wishes

Please make sure to check with your own state board to ensure the transferability of CE credit for an asynchronous course. Some state boards may place restrictions regarding the modality of training required for ethics credits to be awarded. If this training indicates ethics credits are available, please verify that your state allows them to be earned through an on-demand course format.

1 CREDIT HOUR APPROVED FOR:

Social Workers
ASWB ACE – 1 CE Credit
New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work – 1 Contact Hour
Psychologists
APA – 1 CE Credit
Counselors
NBCC ACEP – 1 Contact Hour
New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners – 1 Contact Hour
Substance Abuse Counselors
NAADAC – This course is not approved for NAADAC Contact hours.
Nurses
California Board of Registered Nursing – 1 Contact Hour
Case Managers
CCMC – 1 Contact Hour

Created on 04/03/2024 Revised on 7/8/25

Target Audience:

This course is targeted for social workers, psychologists, counselors, nurses and case managers.

Overview:

Worldwide the number of people who will experience dementia is projected to increase from 47 million in 2015 to 132 million by 2050 (Gaster, et al. 2017). End-of- life planning is important for everyone, but standard advance directives are often not helpful for people who develop dementia. Standard advance directives generally address rare scenarios such as if someone were to fall into a permanent coma, but fail to provide guidance for the most common reason people lose decision-making capacity: dementia. This session will explore the many options available for helping guide advance care planning for dementia, with special attention to the use of dementia-specific advance directives. 

Course Objectives:

By the end of the session – the participant will be able to:

• Name the different components of the dementia directive and how it differs from forms which designate a health agent or power of attorney
• Name two best practices and resources to improve advance care planning with seniors and their care partners
• Identify the goal directed options for a dementia specific advanced directive

Presenter

Barak Gaster, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine, University of Washington, Director of the Cognition in Primary Care Program 

Dr. Gaster has been an educator and primary care physician since 1998, where he has gained a national reputation for creating solutions to difficult problems in medicine. He is a member of the Hastings Center Workgroup on Ethics and Dementia, a member of the Washington Dementia Action Collaborative, and on the leadership team which developed the most recent edition of the CDC’s Healthy Brain Initiative. The Dementia Directive he helped develop has been downloaded more than 150,000 times and has been featured in The New York Times and on NPR.