Back     Home

Advanced Directives - Retaining our Dignity in the Event of Disability or Incapacity

Article submitted by The Kapsak Law Firm, LLC. of Longmont, Colorado.
For more information, they can be reached at 303-651-9330.

Retaining our Dignity in the Event of Disability or Incapacity
The ability to maintain one's dignity in the event of an incapacity or disability is very important to all of us. It is now a fact of life that as we grow older we increasingly face the chance of becoming disabled or incapacitated and unable to voice our wishes regarding our own medical treatment.

If we fail to leave these instructions:

Colorado law provides us the ability to leave written instructions (Advance Directives) about the medical treatment we wish to have in the event we are unable to communicate those wishes. These directives are found in three different types of documents, each unique and each necessary.

Durable Medical Power of Attorney

Through a Durable Medical Power of Attorney we are able to delegate authority to a trusted agent to make decisions regarding our medical care. We use the Medical Power of Attorney to preserve and express our personal beliefs, values, and instructions about our medical care and treatment. The MPOA helps preserve our personal dignity and family harmony in the event of an accident, stroke, injury, or a debilitating disease.

We should not use our age (or youth), or relative good health as an excuse not to have an MPOA since we cannot predict when circumstances may result in our disability or incapacity. Anyone, regardless of age or physical condition, can have an accident or suffer some disease which results in our inability to communicate our wishes and decisions regarding our treatment

Our Medical Power of Attorney will not be effective unless we are disabled. We define in our MPOA who is to make the determination if we are disabled or incapacitated.1 Therefore we need not worry that someone will begin making decisions about our medical care while we are still able to make our own decisions. We also define and limit the extent to which our agent may make decisions on our behalf. We can also limit the time such a power may be effective.

Medical Powers of Attorney may also include directives regarding the use or termination of artificial life support including the use of artificial nourishment, "Do Not Resuscitate," "Do Not Intubate," or "No Code" orders. These directives may be found also in Living Wills. Such directives are typically required by nursing homes and health care service providers.

Medical Powers of Attorney are extremely personal documents and their drafting and execution should not be relegated to "off-the-shelf" or pre-printed forms found in generic computer software documents or office supply store forms. Medical Powers of Attorney may be cursory and broad in their provisions, or detailed and specific, all depending upon the desires of the drafter.

Agent Selection Considerations

Selecting an agent to act on your behalf under any type of Power of Attorney is important and should not be approached lightly. When selecting an agent, keep in mind the following considerations:

Living Will

A Living Will provides us with the dignity of preserving and proclaiming our decisions concerning the scope and degree of life-sustaining medical treatment and procedures in the face of a terminal condition, illness, or disease, when we are unable to voice those decisions or wishes. It is a "pull the plug" document, limited in effectiveness to those of us who are suffering from medically terminal conditions. A Living Will may be a source of peace to a family faced with the pain and indecision to continue life-prolonging treatments when there is no hope of recovery. A Living Will also complements medical decisions expressed in a Medical Power of Attorney.

The Living Will will not become effective unless and until we have been diagnosed by two physicians that we are in a terminal condition and are comatose or have otherwise been unable to communicate for a designated number of days. Once such a diagnosis is made, our physician must try to notify our relatives of our condition and our intentions as expressed in our Living Will. They will then have forty-eight hours within which to go to court to contest our decision, if they indeed do contest our decision.

Both the Medical Power of Attorney and the Living Will may be amended or revoked at any time, so long as we are capable of making legal decisions.

In the event we have not created either a Living Will or Medical Power of Attorney then, under Colorado law, our spouse; parents; adult children, grandchildren and siblings; and close friends can attempt to decide among themselves who should act as our medical proxy and make decisions on our behalf. If they cannot agree, then any of them can go to court to begin a guardianship.

CPR Directive

A CPR Directive is a legal way to state our desire that we do not wish cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in the event we stop breathing on our own. A CPR Directive will not prohibit the use of other types of emergency medical treatment or procedure; we will just not receive CPR. If we have not executed a CPR Directive, it will be presumed that we have consented to CPR. We can incorporate this directive in our MPOA or use a separate document. CPR Directive forms may be obtained from our physician or health care facility.

Conclusion

These issues are important to all of us. Our decisions are best made by discussing these matters with our family, along with trusted religious, medical, and legal advisors. If our office may be of assistance in this process, do not hesitate to contact us.

Typically the principal will require that the agent and the principal's attending physician both find that the principal is unable to make medical decisions. This may be varied according to the individual principal's desires and circumstances.

Back     Home