Living Will/Advanced Health Care Directive

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A Living Will/Advanced Health Care Directive is a document which allows an individual, known as the Declarant, to state in advance his or her wishes as concerns medical and health care treatments and procedures which might unduly prolong the dying process. The Missouri Death Prolonging Procedures Act, as set forth in Chapter 459 of the Missouri Revised Statutes, allows any competent individual to create and sign a Living Will/Advanced Health Care Directive.

Such document must be created and signed prior to incapacitation or disability and will remain effective and valid during such period. A Living Will/Advanced Health Care Directive is usually drafted as part of a Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Decisions, since both documents address health care matters.

The Declarant retains absolute control over his or her treatment decisions while compent and conscious and may verbally terminate such document. The Living Will/Advanced Health Care Directive is given operative effect only if the Declarant is unable to make his or her treatment decisions and is determined by the written opinion of the attending physician to have sustained substantial and irreversible loss of mental capacity and is unable to eat or drink without medical assistance, or to have an incurable or irreversible condition in which death will occur within a relatively short period of time regardless of the application of life-prolonging medical procedures.

The term death-prolonging procedures may be defined by the Declarant to include whatever medical procedures or treatments he or she desires. Normally, the term is defined to include all types of medical procedures, treatments or interventions which when applied would serve only to artifically prolong the natural dying process. Examples include artifical ventilation and respiration and artifically supplied nutrition. Pain medication is always allowed and the document drafted by our office does allow for artifically supplied hydration.

In a Living Will/Advanced Health Care Directive the Declarant may also designate a legal representative, known as a Proxy, to follow through with the Declarant's wishes in the event he or she becomes incapaciated or unconscious and is unable to make such decisions directly. Often the Declarant will designate a Proxy who is the same individual as the Attorney in Fact in the Declarant's Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Decisions, and it is for this reason both documents are normally drafted as one.

A Living Will/Health Care Directive is a critical component of any individual's estate plan. Without such document in place should an individual enter into a terminal illness or a persistant vegative state there is the possibility the individual may remain on life support indefinitely. In such cases the individual's family or loved ones would be required to petition the local probate court in order to prove the individual wished not to be supported by such death-prolonging procedures. You may easily avoid such unnecessary proceeding by creating a Living Will/Health Care Directive while you are competent.

To create a Living Will/Health Care Directive please review and complete the Request Form found on this website. The document drafted and provided to you will incorporate the provisions of the Missouri Death Prolonging Procedures Act and consist of five (5) pages which thoroughly address all medical and health care treatments and procedures. If you have any questions please feel free to email us at manager@missouridurablepowerofattorney.com. There is no charge for our answers to your questions.