Living Will and Advance Care Planning: The Need of the Hour

Advance care planning (ACP) refers to the process through which patients, their families, and healthcare providers discuss and record preferences for end-of-life care.¹ Internationally, ACP has been shown to reduce unnecessary interventions, align medical decisions with patient wishes, and provide dignity at the end-of-life. In India, however, structured ACP is virtually absent. Good end-of-life care is directly linked to the quality of death that Indians achieve, which has been consistently poor; in the 2021 Quality of Death Index report, India ranked 59 out of 81 countries that were studied.².