Advance Care Directives (living will) and medical durable power of attorney are legal documents that protect your right to make choices about your medical care if you ever become unable to communicate your wishes.
Advance Care Planning is a process for directing medical treatment and interventions at a time in the future when you can no longer make your wishes known. This process starts with conversations between you, family, friends, and your healthcare provider.
Advance Care Planning conversations between you, family, friends, and your healthcare provider should center on goals of care. No two people are alike and the decisions are solely yours to make, but below are some goals commonly expressed by others near the end of life.
Advance Care Directive allows a person to document the medical treatments and interventions they wish to receive at their end-of-life, such as:
Mechanical Ventilation
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
Artificially administered nutrition and hydration
Dialysis
An Advance Care Directive allows caregivers, family, and loved-ones to know your wishes. They will not be left to struggle with making decisions on your behalf during an extremely stressful time. Moreover, without advanced care planning patients are more likely to receive non-beneficial, painful and expensive treatments prior to death.
Filling out Advance Care Directives can feel intimidating for some people. Below is a short video outlining how to fill one out. Please talk to your health care provider if you have questions or are uncertain of any part of your Advance Directive documents.