Estate planning involves the creation of legal documents addressing matters of your estate. Examples include a will, one or more trusts and powers of attorney for financial issues.
While estate planning ensures the preservation of your assets for future generations, you can also use it to make healthcare decisions for yourself. Advance medical directives help you protect your healthcare wishes even if you cannot say them aloud.
Retain control over your healthcare
When you add advance medical directives to your Allentown, Pennsylvania, estate plan, you can rest easy knowing you will only receive the healthcare you desire. It can also ensure you do not receive any treatment you do not want. Examples of what you can address in your advance directives include whether or not you wish to:
- Receive emergency CPR or other methods of restarting your heart
- Be resuscitated if you stop breathing
- Receive a feeding tube to supply your body with nutrients
- Be placed on a mechanical ventilation device
- Receive antiviral medicine or antibiotics if an infection arises when near death
- Undergo dialysis if your kidneys should fail
- Donate your organs and tissue when approaching death
- Donate your entire body to science for research
You can specify your medical directives by including a healthcare power of attorney or a living will in your estate plan documents. If you become too injured, ill or mentally incapacitated to speak your wishes, your directives ensure you only get the treatment you desire.
Because of the many factors that may be involved in making medical decisions, one of the most important aspects of a health care directive or “Living WIll” is naming an agent (or agents) to make decisions for you if you are not able to do so.
We recommend familiarizing yourself with Pennsylvania estate planning laws to strengthen your plan and reduce hardships for the loved ones you leave behind.
