Medical professionals are considering introducing a system in which a record of an individual's wishes on whether to be revived in a medical emergency would be shared with medical personnel when needed.

Aging Japan has increasing numbers of elderly terminally ill patients, and doctors have no choice but to try to revive them following collapse when they aren't sure whether the patients would want to be resuscitated.

The current system does, however, respect the requests of close relatives, such as the spouse of an incapacitated patient, to end life support.