What is the difference between a living will and power of attorney?

Question

does a person with POA see to it that a living will is carried through - or are they legally seperate things?

Answer 1

A living will is a standard document that purports to cover how you'd want to be treated medically if you can't speak for yourself. You can put as much or as little information in it as you wish. There are many such forms available online and through various organizations. However, there are things to consider:

"Living wills of all sorts pose other problems. One study summarized them this way: that most people don’t have them; that most people can’t truly know what they’d want in a hypothetical future; that they have trouble stating their wishes clearly; that the living will frequently wouldn’t be available when it’s needed; and that finally, even if it is available, surrogates can’t necessarily reliably apply what is in it to the situation at hand
(http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2004/livingwills.htm).

In 1995, a SUPPORT Study costing $28 million and relying on many centers found that in hospitals in the U.S. that critically ill patients were not receiving the care they wanted or needed. Interventions that had been created to improve care of the dying “had no effect as physicians continued to ignore advance directives, living wills and patient wishes”
(http://www.jhu.edu/gazette/aprjun97/jun2397/bioeth.html)."
--A Matter of Life and Death: Informed Advance Health Care Directives by Michael J Laurence

There are also advance health care directives which are more oriented toward living than the typical living will, which arose out of the concern that people would be trapped into prolonged dying from medical intervention.

A health care power of attorney is not as easily found online or for free, but it can be done. You need to ask the person if he is willing to serve as your POA AND you two need some in-depth and INFORMED discussions on the boundaries of what you want done because that person WILL be your voice when you can't speak. You should have more than one such POA, but rank them, in case your first choice is unavailable. (If you select someone you love, what if you're both in a very serious accident--you could BOTH be incapable of communicating.)

Frankly, the medical, legal, and spiritual issues are complex. There is a good book that walks people through how to do this sensibly. That's where the quote came from--A Matter of Life and Death.

The book also recommends a durable financial power of attorney--explains what it is, how to get one, etc. People are too reluctant to get these necessary documents in order and have the even more important discussions that are needed. Most people do NOT have the medical training to grasp what's going on if it's truly a crisis and if they never had a meaningful discussion with the patient, HOW are they to decide what to do?

BTW, much of what the media disperses about comas, brain death, etc. is actually inaccurate. Reading a book such as Kate's Journey by Kate Adamson, shows you the perils of people giving advice when they're out of their field. Kate was basically written off after a stroke (and she was young, healthy, and had the less common type of stroke). Her attorney husband fought for her. Today not only does she do motivational speaking and writing, but she's walking and caring for her daughters. In fact, she just wrote another book Paralyzed but Not Powerless.

The POA is frankly more important than the living will, but the POA needs to know what you REALLY want done.

Answer 2

Totally separate things.

A living will sets out what YOU want to happen under specific circumstances if you're unable to speak for yourself.

A power of attorney gives someone else authority to do things they way HE chooses.

So a living will would be to say "If I'm in a coma turn off the machines", while a Power of Attorney lets the holder decide whether or not to turn them off.

Richard

Answer 3

Living will gives directions on how to procede when you're paralyzed, for example, and can no longer speak. Or when you're in a coma, for example, and a decision is needed whether to allow you to prolong your life with artificial means, like a heart/lung machine; or whether to pull the plug and allow you to expire.

In contrast, power of attorney gives another person the right to speak on your behalf. Say you're going on a long trip overseas, and will be out of communication range (no cellphone, landline, or telegrams). Then you'd want to give power of attorney to your spouce, parents, or a trusted friend or relative, until you return.

Answer 4

A will pertains to the disposition of assets.

a POA can be broad or limited, and pertains to the actions permitted or prohibited by someone acting on another's behalf.