Advance Directive

An advance medical directive is a legal document that identifies a person’s health care preferences in the event they become unable to make decisions for themselves. Advance care planning provides invaluable guidance and peace of mind for family members.

Advance care planning can make a critical difference in the lives of your parents as they age. An elder law attorney can help your elderly parents with advance directives, wills, living trusts and power of attorney before they get sick.

Deciding whether to use a feeding tube is a complex matter, especially for older patients. Family caregivers should understand why and when tube feeding is appropriate in case they must make this choice for their loved one someday.

Adding this one simple step when creating or changing a will, powers of attorney and other crucial legal documents can prevent unnecessary stress, legal problems and familial discord down the road.

The slow and unpredictable progression of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias often makes it tricky for families and even doctors to determine when to bring in hospice. Use these guidelines to decide if a loved one is a candidate for end-of-life care.

Planning ahead benefits seniors and their family caregivers. Working with an attorney who specializes in elder law gives seniors peace of mind and allows family members to understand their roles and responsibilities before they must act on them.

Even if you were heavily involved in the decision to place an elderly loved one in a senior living facility, you must have certain legal documents in place to participate in conversations with staff about their medical care.

If you anticipate needing to make medical decisions for elderly parents or your spouse in the future, make sure you have these 3 key legal documents in place.

An estate plan that will safeguard a senior’s health and finances consists of a will, advance directives and powers of attorney. Familiarize yourself with these basic legal documents before estate planning begins.

A do-not-resuscitate order (DNR) is an advance care planning document that specifies what potentially life-sustaining medical interventions a person does not want to receive. A basic DNR order usually states a patient’s wish to avoid undergoing CPR.

The most noticeable symptom of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is memory loss, but this progressive condition ultimately weakens the immune system and prevents the body from functioning properly. Complications like infections are often the cause of death.

I want to die with dignity and protect my family. Here's my advance directive to voluntarily stop eating and drinking (VSED) in the event of future dementia or other incapacitating irreversible condition.

I can't abide the idea of subjecting my family to the emotional strain (and financial drain) of my long slide into demented oblivion. There's are ways to prevent that scenario from happening.

New bills and recommendations look to pay doctors and patients to chat about end-of-life care plans and advance health care directives.

Dementia patients with end-of-life care instructions in place were three times less likely to experience fear and anxiety in their final days.

Some people anticipate aging alone without family, while others find their plans upended by divorce, estrangement or death. Preparing for the possibility of being a solo ager requires extra effort but will prevent unnecessary hardships and stress.

Essential legal documents for estate planning and long-term care planning often need to be notarized to prove they’re valid. However, notarization can be tricky if a senior has Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia.

People once avoided certain topics, like talking about death and dying, but that's slowly changing. Here is why those discussions are so important to individual patients, their families and friends.

Advance directives are useful for end-of-life care planning, but there's another tool that goes one step further. POLST forms enable terminally ill elders to turn their future care preferences into explicit medical orders for doctors and first responders.

There is an entire set of literature about the topic of not feeding at the end of life. It even has its own acronym, VSED (voluntarily stopping eating and drinking).