Difficult Seasons

Many difficult decision situations that arise in caregiving can be can be easier to handle if you and your loved ones do some advanced preparation.  Ideally, many of these should be done even before you become a caregiver, but if they haven’t been, there’s no time better than the present.

There are basically three kinds of advance medical directives:

1.  A Living Will specifies what kind of medical treatments are desired should the individual become incapacitated.  Living Wills nearly always contain the statement:

If I suffer an incurable, irreversible illness, disease, or condition and my attending physician determines that my condition is terminal, I direct that life-sustaining measures that would serve only to prolong my dying be withheld or discontinued.

Other more specific statements about treatment options can be included as well.

2.  A Health Care Proxy is a legal document in which an individual designates another person to make health care decisions if he or she is rendered incapable of making their wishes known.  The designated individual has the same rights in making a decision as the person would if they were able to make their wishes known.

3.  A Durable Power of Attorney provides the power of attorney to others in the case of an incapacitating medical condition. The durable power of attorney allows an individual to make bank transactions, sign Social Security checks, apply for disability, or simply write checks to pay the utility bill while an individual is medically incapacitated.

Since these and similar documents are legal documents, they must be signed and witnessed, and you might want to consult an attorney to have them drawn up in accordance with the laws of your state.

These documents, and the discussion that you may have with your loved ones while preparing them, can go a long way in making decisions during crisis times easier to handle.  You know ahead of time what the individual would like to have happen, and you have the right to make the decision.

There is one big caveat, however.  These documents are of no value unless the physicians and hospitals know about them. So it’s important to have copies in a readily available place in case they’re needed.

Tags: advance directive, durable power of attorney, healthcare proxy, living will

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 3:15 am and is filed under Caregiving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.