Information About Living Wills

Could you ever need a living will? It could happen. What if you are involved and an accident and suffer serious injury? What if you become so ill with a life-threatening disease that you can no longer meaningfully participate in decisions about your healthcare? These situations can and do happen each and every day.

You may think that you've already expressed your opinion on what your preferences would be to your friends and family. However, their memories of what you said may not be accurate. Not everyone may have been present when you expressed your wishes and conflict may occur if you fall ill. Finally, a legal document such as a living will carries much more weight with doctors and other medical professionals when it comes to actually carrying out your wishes.

If you don't think that having this document in place is important, remember the Terri Schiavo case. Her husband said he believed that Terri would prefer to die with dignity rather than live in her severely disabled state. Terri's parents believed that she would have wanted to live and hoped to care for her as long as it was possible. The resulting conflict became an argument of national proportions. If Terri had created a living will, conflict might have been avoided.

It is my hope that this information about living wills will enable you to discuss living wills openly and knowledgeably with your legal professional, with your health professional, and with your friends and family.

There are many definitions of a living will, but generally speaking a living will is a document that defines a person's preferences about medical treatment (usually including, but not limited to, their preferences about the use of artificial life support systems) in the event that they are unable to express those preferences themselves.

A living will may also be called a health care directive, an advanced directive, or a medical directive. A federal law called the Patient Self-Determination Act has been in place since 1991. This law requires any institution that receives Medicare or Medicaid to inform patients about state law on self-determination issues. Current law about the precise format of living wills and how many witnesses are required varies from state to state, so it can be helpful to seek professional legal advice in your state.

Your living will should be as specific as your state law allows it to be so that there can be no doubt about your intentions. It is also important to know that as long as you are competent (able to make sound decisions), you can change your living will as often as you want.

Recording your wishes and preferences in a living will can be a tremendous source of relief for friends and family members should you ever become ill or injured. Once you have created this document there can be no doubts about what your wishes are and how you wish them to be carried out.

This information about living wills should give you a sound basis to explore this topic with your legal and health care professionals.