What is the primary goal of Selective Treatment in the POLST form?

• A. To treat medical conditions with limited measures, avoiding invasive procedures
• B. To perform full resuscitation even when not indicated
• C. To avoid all treatment
• D. To replace life sustenance with palliative sedation

Answer: (A)

Selective Treatment in a POLST form means choosing medical actions that address the illness but with limited, non-burdensome measures, avoiding invasive or aggressive procedures that are unlikely to help or that would be overly burdensome. The aim is to provide care that offers real benefit while respecting the patient’s goals and values. In practice, this can include treating infections or dehydration with appropriate medications and fluids, providing comfort-focused care, and using noninvasive options when possible, while not pursuing full resuscitation or ICU-level interventions unless there’s a clear, goal-consistent benefit. This approach is about balancing benefit and burden—treating what makes sense for the situation without defaulting to aggressive life-sustaining measures that may not improve quality of life. The other options conflict with this idea: full resuscitation is not the default in selective treatment, avoiding all treatment is not the goal, and replacing life sustenance with palliative sedation goes beyond the intended scope of POLST’s selective treatment decisions.