An advance directive is a way to tell your loved ones and doctors your wishes if something happens and you can’t speak for yourself. A directive can include the type and extent of your medical care.

Advance directives are legal documents that outline your preferences regarding major medical decisions. The two main types are a living will and a durable power of attorney. An advance directive is ...

Christy Bieber has a JD from UCLA School of Law and began her career as a college instructor and textbook author. She has been writing full time for over a decade with a focus on making financial and ...

States generally allow a person (principal) to appoint another person (agent) to make health care decisions, receive protected health information, or both on the principal’s behalf. In many states, ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a significant loss of life, often far sooner than individuals and families expected for their loved ones. This past year has raised conversations on health ...

It’s a common hope that most people share: that their end-of-life wishes will be respected if something happened and they couldn’t make their own health care decisions. Yet only about a third of ...

The end of life sometimes begins with an advance directive. Learning about advance directives now may make things easier for your loved ones later, when they’re in a hospital room trying to decide ...

Two main types of advance directives are living wills and healthcare power of attorney. These are legal documents that outline a person’s preferences regarding major medical decisions. An advance ...

Some types of health conditions, like Alzheimer's disease, mean that at some point you might not be able to make your own decisions about the health care you get. In these cases, it helps to have ...

There are a number of assumptions that the legitimacy of a particular application of an advance directive appears to operate under. First, there is the assumption that the author of the advance ...