How Does a Living Will Work?

For anyone considering estate planning for themselves, or hoping to help an elderly parent with elements of estate planning, advance directives are essential to consider. Advance directives are different types of documents that ultimately allow a person to have a say in their own medical decisions or health care proceedings even if they become legally incapacitated and cannot discuss their wishes with the health care team themselves. There are different types of advance directives that have their own functions, and it is important to consider creating all of the available types of advance directives in Connecticut. Today, we want to discuss living wills with you and to provide you with more information about how they work.

Understanding the Living Will 

Unlike a traditional will that a person makes during estate planning, a living will is not a document through which you can leave assets to heirs. Rather, a living will is a very specific document through which you can request that certain treatments be provided or withheld if you are terminally ill and become incapacitated. A living will is also known as “health care instructions.”

When a person makes a living will, they will typically indicate that, if they have a terminal condition and have become permanently unconscious, they request to “be allowed to die and not be kept alive through life support systems.” Connecticut generally defines a terminal condition or illness as “an incurable or irreversible medical condition which, without the administration of life support systems, will, in the opinion of my attending physician, result in death within a relatively short time.” Further, “permanently unconscious” is understood to mean “in a permanent coma or persistent vegetative state which is an irreversible condition” in which the person is “at no time aware of [themselves] or the environment and show no behavioral response to the environment.”

Through a living will, a person can also request the CPR, artificial respiration, and artificial nutrition or hydration be provided or withheld. These documents can also allow a person to make other specific related requests.

How a Living Will Works

If you, or someone you love, has a living will and becomes incapacitated after being diagnosed with a terminal illness, how should you expect the document to work? This is an important question to ask, and to understand the answer to, for anyone considering a living will for themselves or helping an elderly parent to create one.

First, it will be important to determine that the living will is valid. For the living will to be valid, there must be proper witness statements that have been signed and dated, and notarized affidavits. Then, the attending physician will need to confirm that the person with the living will either has a “terminal condition” or is “permanently unconscious.” Then, the health care instructions for either providing or withholding certain types of care can be honored.

Contact a Canton Estate Planning Attorney 

Estate planning can be complicated, especially when you are trying to make sure that an elderly parent has all critical documents in place. An experienced Connecticut estate planning lawyer at the Law Office of Brian S. Karpe can speak with you today, and we can help you and your elderly family members to begin the process of estate planning in Connecticut.

Source:

portal.ct.gov/-/media/ag/health-issues/advancedirectiveslivingwillorhealthcareinstructions-pdf.pdf