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Overview of Advance Care Planning

...using living wills, health care powers of attorney, and other directives

You have the legal right, while you are still competent, to appoint someone to make health care decisions for you if you lose the capacity to make your own decisions. This is true in every state. You may also prepare a "living will", to give written instructions about medical treatments, such as tube feeding and CPR, which you may not want under certain circumstances.

However, there is more to "advance care planning" than completing legally valid documents. Completing the documents is perhaps the easiest part of an effective care planning process. The goal of this web site is to help you complete this process of whcih completing valid forms is only one part.

If you already have completed a directive, chances are your treatment instructions are too vague to be of much help should anyone ever need to rely on them. Use this site to review your current advance care plans and documents.

The four steps of the advance care planning are:

Step 1: Understand the benefits and limitations of advance directives

Step 2: Select your health care agent(s)

Step 3: Talk with your physicians about your directives

Step 4: Download & prepare your documents

Please read our Disclaimer before proceeding

If you are ready to proceed, select Step 1 now.

Additional forms and information pages available at this site:

An introduction to advance directives is for anyone who wants a more complete introduction to this subject.

Special Purpose Forms  These include the Prehospital Medical Care Directive form (the orange DNR form) and three attachments to the Living Will & Health Care Power of attorney. The attachments may be of interest if you are a women of child bearing age, your quality of life is severely compromised by current medical problems, or there are family members who you definitely do not want to be involved in decisions about your health care.

Mental Health Care Power of Attorney Enacted in 1999 and revised in 2000, this directive is intended to give individuals greater control over how mental health care treatment decisions are made, if they must be made for you. The Living Will & Health Care Power of Attorney form of Dorothy Garske Center includes one provision that may be important to many older adults. VOAz does not provide a full Mental Health POA.

Portability. For summary information of Living Will laws in all states click here. (August 2009) For information on Health Care Power of Attorney and other aspects of elder law click here.

Frequently asked questions about advance directives

Advance care planning resume of Dorothy Garske Center summarizes a decade-plus of work by the Center on this subject.

Advance directive materials for health care providers includes a hospice directive, an abridged Living Will & Health Care Power of Attorney, patient education materials, and more.

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