Advanced Directives

Advance directives are documents, which state your choices about medical treatment or name someone to make decisions about your medical treatment, if you are unable to make these decisions or choices yourself. Through these directives, you can make legally valid decisions about your future medical care.

North Carolina and federal law give every competent adult, 18 years and older, the right to make their own health care decisions, including the right to decide what medical care or treatment to accept, reject or discontinue.

If you do not want to receive certain types of treatment or if you wish to name someone to make health care decisions for you, you have the right to make these desires known to your doctor, hospital or other health care providers and, in general, have these rights respected. You also have the right to be told about the nature of your illness in terms that you can understand, the general nature of the proposed treatments, the risks of failing to undergo these treatments, and any alternatives treatments or procedures that may be available to you. However, there may be times when you cannot make your wishes known to your doctor or other health care providers. For example, if you were taken to a hospital in a coma, would you want the hospital’s medical staff to know what your specific wishes are about the medical care that you want or do not want to receive?

North Carolina recognizes three types of advance directives

1. Declaration (living will)
2. Health care power of attorney
3. Advance instruction for mental health treatment

One form of advance directives is the Five Wishes booklet, which is available on line or can be obtained through Hospice of Wilkes Regional Medical Center. The book gives you a way to control how you are treated if you get seriously ill, and it goes beyond medical issues. It talks about personal, emotional and spiritual needs as well as your medical wishes. The easy-to-use booklet was written with the help of the American Bar Associations’ Commission on the Legal Problems of the elderly, and the nations leading experts in end-of-life care. It meets the technical requirements for status in 36 states, including North Carolina.

The five wishes include the person you want to make health care decisions for you when you can’t make them for yourself, and your wishes for the kind of medical treatment you want or don’t want, for how comfortable you want to be, for how you want people to treat you, and for what you want your loved ones to know.

The document allows you to ask that you be cared for with kindness and cheerfulness, and not sadness, and that you want pictures of my loved ones in my room, near my bed. You can ask that your favorite music be played when possible until your time of death.

With regard to family, you can (?) that my family and friends know that I love them, and that I wish for all of my family members to make peace with each other before my death, if they can.

The document (which requires two witnesses and notarization before it is completed) also provides an area to include special requests for your funeral or memorial services.

The five wishes booklets are available through Hospice of Wilkes Regional Medical Center or through the Case Management/Social Work Department of Wilkes Regional. There is no charge, but donations are accepted to help cover the cost.

Additional information and brochures are available at the Put It In Writing website sponsored by the American Hospital Association (www.putitinwriting.org)