Medicine & Drugstore

Advance Directive (AD) – An AD is a legal document that informs your medical staff, family and friends what sort of care you wish to have if you are not capable to make medical decisions. It allows you to control the type of care you will receive and the type of care you will not receive if you become seriously injured or ill. An AD eliminates guess-work and stress.  Your AD should describe they type of treatment you would want depending on how ill you are. It should outline the types of medical treatment you do not want in certain situations.

A Durable Power of Attorney is another kind of AD, allowing you to name a person you wish to make health care decisions for you when you are unable to do so. Another type of AD is called a Living Will. This legal document outlines what kind of medical or life-sustaining treatments you would want if you were seriously injured or terminally ill. Yet another type of AD is called Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) is a request not to receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) if your heart stops functioning and or if you are no longer breathing. This type of request can be put in your medical record by your physician. Each state has a set of laws regarding Advance Directives. You can download your states AD via http://www.caringinfo.org/stateaddownload.   Advance Directives are not just for the seriously ill or elderly because you never know when you might face an unexpected life-threatening situation. In your AD be sure to address the following topics: resuscitation; mechanical ventilation; nutritional and hydration assistance; dialysis; treatments in the end stage of life (pain meds, antibiotics, ventilation, etc.).

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 1:00 am and is filed under Medical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.