Coda Alliance Go Wish Cards Help Initiate the End of Life Conversation

Coda Alliance in Silicon Valley brings together local hospices, hospitals, universities, elder care organizations, and faith communities to implement their mission of providing people with the skills and tools they need to empower themselves with excellent care at the end of life. They provide assistance to the community on how to complete advance health care directives, offer educational programs for the public in the surrounding Santa Clara County, California, and provide resources on the end of life to the public through their website.

Unique to Coda Alliance is their signature program, the Go Wish card game, which helps individuals and families get a conversation started about their end-of-life wishes. “The cards are the priorities people want honored at end of life,” explains Coda Alliance board member and former Executive Director, Cindy Safe.

Over the past seven years, Safe has had extensive experience using the cards in trainings that stimulate the conversation around the end of life. The game is a set of thirty-six cards, which contain short statements like, “I want to have human touch,” “I want to be pain free,” and other things that people often say are important to them in the final weeks or months of life. Participants sort the cards in order of priorities, then discuss with friends, family members, and caregivers why they made the decisions they did. The game is a fascinating and effective means to encourage discussion around this tough topic.

“The cards are a non-threatening way to get people to start thinking, and two or more people to start conversations about end-of-life priorities,” says Safe.

Go Wish offers instructions to play individually or with a group, which stimulate different issues, Safe says. “For some the alone part forces them to consider their own death and what they might want, and the playing with others usually generates a conversation that helps with communication of end-of-life goals.”

No matter how it’s approached, the conversation about death and end-of-life care decisions remains a difficult one. Coda Alliance’s Go Wish Game offers a simple and straight-forward approach to the conversation, however. It encourages participants to consider the types of things that so many of us say are important to us but neglect to discuss.

You can learn more and order packs of Go Wish cards for yourself, your family, or your organization through the Coda Alliance website.

Help us start the conversation! In the comments, share a short statement about something that’s important to your vision of a quality end-of-life experience.

First image source: PalliativeMed.org

Second image courtesy of Coda Alliance.