Article Date: Thursday, November 01, 2007
The purpose of a Living Will declaration is to make sure that your health-care providers, family, and friends know your wishes regarding end-of-life decisions such as life-sustaining treatment, and artificially supplied nutrition and hydration. In a Living Will, you may express your desires that such treatment or nutrition be withheld or withdrawn if you are in a terminal condition or in a permanently unconscious state. Or in the alternative, you may express your desire that you would all treatment and nutrition continue to be provided to you.
“Life-sustaining treatment” generally refers to any health care procedure, including artificial respiration, whose purpose is to
prolong the dyingprocess. Life sustaining treatment also includes the
provision of nutrition and hydration through artificial means.
“Terminal condition” means an irreversible, incurable and untreatable condition from which there is no hope of recovery. Generally, for
you tobe determined to be in a terminal condition, your attending
physician and one additional physician will have to examine you and certify that based on their professional opinion, you cannot recover and that death is likely to occur within a relatively short time if you do not receive life-sustaining treatment.
“Permanently unconscious state” or “vegetative state” refers to an irreversible condition in which you are not responding to outside
stimulus and are permanently unaware of yourself and your surroundings. Here again, generally, for you to be determined to be in a permanently unconscious or vegetative state, your attending physician and one additional physician will have to examine you and certify that based on their professional opinion, you have suffered total loss of brain function.
A Living Will is a document that permits you to make your wishes known about which procedures you would like to continue to be provided
to you, and which you would like withdrawn, and under what circumstances.
Having a Living Will does not affect the responsibility of health care
personnel to provide comfort care to you. Comfort care means any
measure taken to diminish pain or discomfort, but not to postpone death.
A Living Will generally only applies to situations where the patient is in a terminally ill or vegetative condition, and may not govern
situations where the patient is merely unconscious. For individuals who wish to provide directions and give a power of attorney to another
individual for situations where they may be unconscious but not terminally ill or in a vegetative state, they may wish to execute a Health Care Power of Attorney, sometimes referred to as an Advance Health Care Directive.
The Health Care Power of Attorney form gives the person you designate, your agent or attorney-in-fact, the authority to make most
health care decisions for you if you lose the capacity to make informed health care decisions for yourself. This authority is effective only when your attending physician determines that you have lost the capacity to make informed health care decisions for yourself. As long as you have the capacity to make informed health care decisions for yourself, you retain the right to make all medical
and other health care decisions. You may also limit the authority that
your agent will have. The authority of the agent to make health care
decisions for you generally will include the authority to have access to your medical file, speak with your health care providers, the authority to give, refuse, or withdraw consent to any care, treatment, service, or procedure.
Click here to find your state's Living Will Form.
Health Care Power of Attorney Forms are also available for your state.
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