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Get Informed:
Advance Directives
What steps should I take to complete my advance directives?
- Being able to express what you define as quality of life for yourself is a good foundation for putting your wishes into writing. Thinking through the following questions might help:
- Do you have a preference for where you live at the end of your life?
- Who would you want to help care for you?
- What spiritual beliefs and personal values do you hold that may strongly influence your views on death and dying?
- How important is it to you to be able to walk, talk, eat and maintain other activities of daily living?
- What are your fears about death?
- What are your concerns for loved ones whose lives will be affected by your illness?
- Will financial issues affect your treatment choices?
- What is your preference for receiving mechanical life-support measures and under what circumstances?
- Learn more about the types of life-sustaining procedures used by hospitals and emergency rescue workers and decide what types of treatments you would or would not want.
- If you are facing a life-limiting illness, talk to your doctor and make sure you have the answers you need about how your disease may progress and what your treatments are expected to accomplish.
- Choose the advance directive documents you want to use and read the instructions carefully to ensure they are witnessed properly. Keep in mind that all states require that your witnesses be adults.
- You may decide you want to use the services of an attorney to help you complete your advance directives, but this is not required for them to be legally valid as long as they are properly executed.
- After your advance directives are signed and witnessed, make several copies. Keep the original documents in a safe but accessible place, but not in a safe deposit box where others may not be able to access them. Tell others where you put them and make a note on the copy that lets others know where the originals are kept. Give copies to your health care surrogate, your doctors and others who may be involved with your health care, your family and clergy.
- Talk openly with your family, health care surrogate, doctors and friends about the personal wishes and spiritual values upon which your advance directives are based.
- Your advance directives remain in effect unless you choose to revoke them. If you complete a new advance directive, it invalidates the previous one. You should review your advance directives from time to time to ensure they still reflect your wishes.
The above information on advance directives is provided as a courtesy and should not be relied upon as legal advice. There are statutory provisions that address and set forth specific requirements for each of the advance directives listed above that are not discussed in this general information. You should consult an attorney regarding such requirements and any questions you may have regarding your legal rights and responsibilities.
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