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

I am excited to engage on one of my favorite topics at the May 2025 American Geriatrics Society Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago: decision making for unrepresented patients. 

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