What are living wills? Everything to know about this essential planning tool.

For many people, there are obstacles to planning for end-of-life care. Even for those who’ve had health scares of one kind or another, it can be difficult to predict how far you’d like healthcare providers to go to prolong your life. Nevertheless, advance care planning is essential to guarantee that providers and loved ones administer end-of-life care that is consistent with one’s preferences and values.

In a prior article at Peacefully, we talked about an important branch of advance directives known as healthcare proxies. This article will delve into another equally important branch known as living wills.

In the medical setting, a living will is a legal document that summarizes a patient’s preferences for medical care. Living wills can be outlined to cover preferences on all things related to hospitalization, including pain control, treatments, and procedures. The most common areas that living wills address are cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), mechanical ventilation, feeding tubes, dialysis, antibiotics/antivirals, chemotherapeutics, organ donation, and comfort care measures.

Like any type of advance directive, living wills are used only when a patient is unable to communicate their medical preferences. Some examples of a person who has lost this capacity include a “persistent vegetative state,” traumatic injuries, and certain psychiatric diagnoses. Importantly, living wills can also be revoked orally or in writing by the patient at any time as long as they have the ability to make decisions.

Health care proxies and living wills may appear to be very similar, perhaps because they are often developed in concert and used together to help guide end-of-life care in situations. However, there are three main differences between these two entities:

• Living wills are especially useful to address specific treatments; health care proxies are more useful for broader circumstances.

• Living wills can include sections that specify who the health care proxy will be. However, the reverse cannot be true—a proxy cannot write someone’s living will—as only the patient can set down their medical wishes in writing.

• If a patient’s living will and their health care proxy differ in terms of recommended care, the living will overrides the authority of the proxy, since it is an official statement of the patient’s wishes.

While there might be some overlap between a living will and a health care proxy, both are pivotal to guarantee your medical wishes are followed.

While it is difficult to establish living wills that are comprehensive enough to cite preferences for every situation, they are still valued as an important guide to help healthcare providers determine end-of-life care management. Many templates to fill living wills can be found online. However, the best resource to consult is your attorney, healthcare provider, or a hospital. Online forms can be useful and pertinent, but state laws are unique and can change. As a result, such forms risk being outdated.

(If you need help finding an attorney that can guide you through this process, please feel free to use Peacefully’s tool for finding legal help in your state, which can be accessed here.)

Finally, because a living will is a legal document, it usually has to be notarized in the presence of witnesses. In deciding who can be a witness, remember that, while state laws sometimes are unique, generally the witness must be above the age of 18, cannot be related to you by blood, marriage, or adoption, and cannot be beneficiaries of your will or estate.

Once established, your living will should be kept in a safe place, and copies should be sent to your loved ones, healthcare provider, and health care proxy.

The truth is, accidents can happen to anyone. That is why advance care planning should be considered a routine part of healthcare maintenance. For anyone above the age of 18, it is important to establish advance directives early and to revisit them often to ensure that they are up to date.

— Nikhil Anbarasan