Making Medical Treatment Decisions for Unrepresented Older Adults: Updates to the AGS Position Statement

Join me at the annual meeting of the American Geriatrics Society for - Making Medical Treatment Decisions for Unrepresented Older Adults: Updates to the AGS Position Statement. Saturday, May 10, 2025, 7:30am - 8:30am.  

Making medical decisions on behalf of unrepresented older adults, who by definition lack medical decision-making capacity, an identifiable surrogate decision maker, and an advance directive, is likely to become increasingly common with demographic changes in the United States and remains a challenge in clinical practice. In order to assist AGS members in caring for unrepresented older adults, in 2024 the AGS Ethics Committee updated the 2017 “AGS Position Statement: Making Medical Treatment Decisions for Unbefriended Older Adults.” 

Learning Objectives: 

(1) discuss key findings from the updated position statement, including the rationale for changing the term “unbefriended” to “unrepresented"

(2) describe an ethical framework for decision-making on behalf of unrepresented older adults

(3) review findings from the literature on clinicians’ experiences in caring for unrepresented older adults.

Moderator - Joseph Dixon, MD, MA
Older Adults Without Advocates and the Unrepresented: Change in Terminology - Rachel Brenner, MD
A Bioethics Approach to Medical Decision Making in Unrepresented Older Adults - Thaddeus Pope, JD, PhD, HEC-C
Clinician Experience in Caring for Unrepresented Older Adults and Future Directions - Timothy Farrell, MD & Yael Zweig, AGPCNP-BC