What Is an Advance Directive?

An advance directive is a legal document that allows you to share your wishes with your health care team if you can’t speak for yourself.  An Oregon advance directive allows you to:

  1. Identify the person you want the health care team to work with in making decisions about your medical care; and
  2. Say whether you would want tube feeding and/or life support in certain end of life situations.

If no one can QUICKLY find your advance directive, it may not be worth the paper it is written on. Once doctor’s apply life-saving treatment like life support or tube feeding, it is much harder to remove those things. Doctors need to make quick decisions and if they don’t know for sure that you do not want to be on life support, they will act to preserve life. Make sure you communicate your wishes and provide copies of your advance directive to your health care professionals.

UPDATE IT! An advance directive should be updated at LEAST every 3 to 5 years. Hospitals and other medical facilities may not honor your advance directive if they are too old!

WHY IT IS NOT ENOUGH! An advance directive is not enough in some situations to ensure your wishes are carried out. Especially in the event of dementia, judges have ordered someone to be hand-fed when their advance directive says they do not want to be tube-fed. See for example THIS news article. Thorough planning can prevent this from happening.

California and Washington Health Care Directive forms are different from Oregon’s but come with similar benefits and problems. Careful planning is needed. Call MGM Law Firm for a free estate planning consultation.

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