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Advance Directives
Reviewed by Medicinsk Expert•Last updated: 2026-10-22•Social Family Issues

Advance Directives

Advance directives are legal documents that allow you to specify your end-of-life medical preferences, ensuring your wishes are known and respected.

Overview

Advance directives are legal documents that allow you to spell out your decisions about end-of-life care ahead of time. They provide a way to communicate your wishes to family, friends, and health care professionals to avoid confusion later on.

Living Wills

A living will tells which treatments you want if you are dying or permanently unconscious. You can accept or refuse medical care. You might want to include instructions on:

  • The use of dialysis and breathing machines
  • Whether you want to be resuscitated if your breathing or heartbeat stops
  • Tube feeding
  • Organ or tissue donation

Durable Power of Attorney

A durable power of attorney for health care is a document that names your health care proxy. Your proxy is someone you trust to make health decisions for you if you are unable to do so.

Frequently Asked Questions

living will specifies the exact medical treatments and life-sustaining measures you do or do not want to receive if you become terminally ill or permanently unconscious, such as mechanical ventilation, dialysis, or artificial nutrition. A durable power of attorney for healthcare (also known as a healthcare proxy) designates a specific, trusted individual to make medical decisions on your behalf whenever you lack the capacity to speak for yourself, including situations that may not be explicitly covered in a living will.
No. An advance directive or living will is not an immediately actionable field order for emergency responders. In an emergency, paramedics are legally required to provide full resuscitation unless an official, state-recognized out-of-hospital Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order or a signed POLST/MOLST (Physician/Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) form is physically present and verified at the scene. Individuals who do not wish to receive CPR at home must have their physician sign this specific medical order.
n advance directive does not take effect simply upon being signed. As long as you maintain decision-making capacity, you retain full legal authority to make your own medical choices. An advance directive only becomes active when your attending physician (and often a second consulting physician) officially evaluates and documents that you are incapacitated and unable to understand treatment options or communicate your preferences, such as during severe delirium, coma, or advanced dementia.
You can revoke or modify an advance directive at any time, provided you are of sound mind. To update it, you must complete and sign a new legal document that meets your state's witnessing and notarization requirements, explicitly stating that it revokes all previous directives. It is essential to physically destroy old copies and provide the newly updated document to your healthcare proxy, primary care physician, and any hospital systems where you receive regular care.
Source: MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicine

MedlinePlus brings together authoritative health information from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations.

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