Advance directive

An advance directive is a legal document stating a person's healthcare preferences or appointing someone to make medical decisions if the person cannot communicate.

Living will: A legal document stating a person's preferences for medical treatment if they become unable to communicate. It records treatment choices directly, rather than delegating decisions to another person.
Healthcare power of attorney: A legal instrument authorizing an appointed agent to make healthcare decisions for another person. It is a common legal route for granting an advance directive's decision-making authority.
Do Not Resuscitate order: A medical order directing clinicians not to attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation if a patient's heart or breathing stops. It concerns one intervention, while an advance directive can address broader future care.
Mental capacity: The legally assessed ability to make a particular decision at a particular time. An advance directive plans for periods when this ability is lacking; it does not itself establish incapacity.
Healthcare proxy: A person legally appointed to make healthcare decisions for someone who cannot make them. This is the decision-maker an advance directive can appoint.
Substituted judgment: A standard for surrogate decisions that asks what the person would have chosen if capable. An agent uses the person's known values and wishes to decide when instructions are incomplete.
Palliative care: Healthcare that relieves suffering and supports quality of life during serious illness. Directives can express preferences about comfort-focused care and symptom relief.
Guardianship: A court-supervised legal arrangement granting a guardian authority over another person's personal or financial affairs. A court may appoint a guardian when no effective directive or suitable agent governs decisions.
Informed consent: A person's voluntary agreement to a medical intervention after receiving relevant information about it. Advance directives preserve treatment choices when contemporaneous consent is impossible.
Best interests standard: A decision standard that selects the option expected to provide the greatest overall benefit to a person. It may guide decisions when an advance directive gives no applicable preference.

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