Advanced Health Care Directives

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT Advanced Health Care Directives

What is an advanced health care directive?

An advanced health care directive allows you to nominate an individual to make decisions related to your health care needs in the event you are unable to do so yourself due to incapacity.

What type of information is in an advanced health care directive?

An advanced health care directive can be either very general or very specific. An individual can simply nominate someone that they trust to make decisions on their behalf related to their health care without any direction or guidance at all, or they can be specific with their wishes. Some considerations in creating an advanced health care directive include whether you would like to remain on life support, whether you would like to receive a feeding tube, whether you would like to receive pain medications, whether you would like your organs donated, whether you would like to be cremated, and of course, who you would like to be responsible for carrying out your desires.