Advance care planning and advance directives: an overview of the main critical issues.

Advance care planning (ACP) is a process that guarantees the respect of the patient's values and priorities about his/her future care at the end of life. It consists of multiple conversations with the health professional that may lead to the completion of Advance Directives (AD), a set of legal documents helpful to clinicians and family members for making critical decisions on behalf of the patient, whereas he/she might become incapable. Over the past years, ACP has become particularly relevant for the growth of chronic diseases, the increase in life expectancy, and the growing attention paid to the patient's decisional autonomy.