A Communication Tool to Assist Severely Injured Older Adults

"The communication tool promotes dialogue and patient deliberation, and supports shared decision making in the context of life-limiting illness. Building on a conceptual model of shared decision-making proposed and the practice of scenario planning our intervention is designed to lead to a discussion of patient preferences and consideration of outcomes.~The surgeon verbally describes the best case, worst case, and most likely outcomes for each treatment option-incorporating rich narrative from clinical experience and translation of probabilistic information-while drawing a diagram of those options. The surgeon also writes details about each option on the diagram. The narrative and graphic help family and patients formulate and express preferences."