Advance Directives give your medical team instructions as to the types of life-sustaining treatments you wish or do not wish to have administered at the end of your life. These treatments can include such things as feeding tubes, ventilators, resuscitation, or other measures. The purpose of this document is to help you retain some measure of control over your medical care, such as giving you the right to decline certain treatments or have them withdrawn, even if it means death will follow. Without this document, your medical provider will presume that you will want life-sustaining treatments and they will be given to you without your thoughts on the matter. 

Advance Directives can also include the naming of a healthcare proxy, a trusted person whom you authorize to act on your behalf regarding medical decisions when you are unable to communicate them on your own. Your spouse or family members are not automatically allowed to make these decisions for you when needed unless you have specifically authorized them to do so in this legal document. 

These Directives go into effect when medical professionals determine that you have met one of three conditions:

• You are terminally ill (an incurable and irreversible state)
• You have become persistently unconscious or
• You are in the end-stage condition of an illness or injury 

Under Oklahoma law regarding this, even if you decline life-sustaining measures, you will still be provided with pain alleviation medication or treatment. 

Advance Directives give you the ability to do all of the following: 

• Decide ahead of time your wishes regarding life-sustaining treatments
• Name one or more trusted individuals as your healthcare proxy(ies)
• Donate organs to those in need of a transplant or donate your body for medical research
• Provide other instructions about your medical care

At Leslie & Associates, we can walk you through the process of establishing your Advance Directive to ensure you remain in control of these vital decisions.