Advance Care Planning

Advance Care Planning is a process of planning for future medical care in case you are unable to make your own decisions. It is a continual process and not merely a document or isolated event. Advance Care Planning assists you in preparing for a sudden unexpected illness from which you expect to recover as well as the dying process, and ultimately death. The Advance Care Planning process usually includes creating the following documents:

Health Care Proxy and Living Will
Five Wishes Document
Ethical Will

Your Advance Care Planning is a gift you can give to yourself and your family since it helps avoid confusion and conflict in a time of crisis. It provides increased control and peace of mind. You make decisions regarding your medical care while you are still able. It is the first step in assuring your wishes will be honored.

Health Care Proxy and Living Will

A Health Care Proxy and Living Will is used to clearly state your wishes and decisions about end of life issues such as artificial nutrition and/or hydration. If there is no Health Care Proxy form or clear and convincing evidence of your wishes, then decisions about your care may be made by the New York State government.Once you have completed a Health Care Proxy and Living Will, it is important to review this instrument each year to determine if there are any changes you need to make. For example, you need to make sure you are still comfortable with who you chose to be your Spokesperson. Also, be sure to review any changes you make to your Health Care Proxy and Living Will with your Spokesperson.

When completing the Health Care Proxy and Living Will, you will be asked to designate a Spokesperson who will represent your wishes if you are unable to speak for yourself. After completing this document, it is important to have a conversation with your Spokesperson about your end-of-life wishes and decisions. Free copies of a Health Care Proxy and Living Will can be obtained from the New York Bar Association.

Artricles for Further Reading

Dennis, Jane. Living Will is Gift in Midst of Grief, The Interpreter, July/August 2005
Willis, Gerri. Living Wills, 5 Tips: Writing an Effective Living Will, 2005

Five Wishes Document

Along with your Advance Care Planning, you may want to incorporate your Five Wishes. The Five Wishes document, which can be obtained from "Aging with Dignity," helps you express how you want to be treated if you are seriously ill and unable to speak for yourself. It is unique among all other living will and health agent forms because it looks to all of a person‘s needs including medical, personal, emotional, and spiritual.

Prayer on the Preparation of a Living Will
By W. Richard Turner

Note by the author: “A couple of years ago, our parish nurse conducted a workshop on advanced directives and living wills. Believing that this important matter should be prayed over, I wrote a ‘Prayer on the Preparation of a Living Will.’ I share it with you and would be honored if it found a place on your Web site so others might use to too.”

Eternal God, source of mortal and eternal life,

We acknowledge our mortality.

We accept that there is a time for us to be born

and a time for us to die.

The mystery of our death and what lies beyond often frightens us.

Yet we are persuaded that nothing, not even death itself,

will separate us from your love.

We thank you that you loved us so much that you gave your only Son

that whoever of us believes on him will never die.

We thank you that goodness and mercy have followed us all the days of our lives.

We look forward with hope to our dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.

It is with this certain knowledge

that we instruct those who will decide our medical care

not to prolong our passing from this life to the life that is to come.

Give wisdom, compassion, and strength to those who will care for us.

We pray for comfort and physical care for our bodies

at the end of our life in this world.

We pray for peace and spiritual care for our souls

as we prepare for the life that is to come.

We pray that your grace will manifest itself among our family and friends

that we might be reconciled with each other and with you.

Finally, we pray for all those who have preceded us in death.

They are never far from our thoughts and consciousness.

May we one day be united with those we love in the place prepared for us.

For all these gifts, we humbly pray

in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ethical Wills

Another way to help your family is through an Ethical Will (www.ethicalwill.com), which provides a great way to pass on your values and life story to your children and family. An Ethical Will is a nonlegal document that typically imparts beliefs, lessons learned in life, and your hopes and wishes for loved ones.

Did you know that Ethical Wills are not new? The tradition of passing on beliefs, blessings, and advice to the next generation can be traced to biblical times. The earliest ethical wills were delivered by fathers seeking to bestow blessings and other prophesies, and also leave burial instructions. In what may be the first such bequest, in the book of Genesis, Jacob gathers his 12 sons before his death to tell stories, predict their futures, and impart some wisdom of his long life.