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

Join me at the American Geriatrics Society 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago. On Saturday morning, May 10, 2025, we will present "Making Medical Treatment Decisions for Unrepresented Older Adults: Updates to the AGS Position Statement."   

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.

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, AGSF & Yael Zweig, AGPCNP-BC

Moderator: Joseph Dixon, MD, MA