Written advance directives are crucial to ensure that healthcare preferences are honored if you are no longer able to make decisions for yourself.
Advance directives help:
- Clarify Wishes: Advance directives allow you to document specific medical treatments you wants or do not want, such as life-support measures, resuscitation, or artificial nutrition and hydration.
- Relieve Family Burden: Outlining your preferences in advance directives helps family members make difficult decisions during stressful situations, reducing emotional strain and potential conflicts.
- Empower the Individual: Advance directives give you control over your own health and body, ensuring your values and beliefs are respected even if you lose the ability to communicate them.
- Guide Healthcare Providers: Advance directives documents provide specific guidance to medical professionals, enabling them to deliver care that aligns with your desires.
- Provide Legal Protection: Advance directives offer legal assurance that decisions made on your behalf are consistent with your documented preferences, reducing potential disputes.
- Encourage Communication: Documenting your wishes in advance directives fosters open communication and mutual understanding about topics that are often difficult to broach, or not discussed at all.