The nurse is caring for a client who sustained a brain injury and is no longer competent to make health care decisions. The nurse suggests that decisions for care:
1. Be determined by the physician.
2. Are the responsibility of social services.
3. Be made by the agent named in the durable power of attorney.
4. Be made by the client's spouse.
3. Be made by the agent named in the durable power of attorney.
Rationale:
The nurse, recognizing that the client is no longer competent, should follow whatever hospital policy is in place for contacting the agent named in a durable power of attorney for health care. The physician is not the appropriate person to make decisions for the client. Social services may be the department that would contact the agent of a durable power of attorney, but they would not be that power. In the case of an incompetent client, the spouse would be the agent of the durable power of attorney only if the court appointed the spouse.
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