What is a Living Will Document?


A Living Will Document or Living Will Directive allows you to tell healthcare professionals to act on your behalf regarding life-sustaining intervention and treatment if you can no longer speak for yourself. A new survey finds that only 33% of Americans have a living will.

Sixty-seven percent of Americans lack a living will document, potentially leaving them with no say over whether they wish to receive life-sustaining medical treatment in the event they should become incapacitated or terminally ill.



All fifty states have laws regarding the ability of patients to make decisions about their own medical care before the need for treatment arises through the use of advance directives. This allows patients to draft living wills that set forth the type and duration of medical care that they wish to receive should they become unable to communicate those wishes on their own.

It’s human nature to believe that we’ll live ‘forever’ and don’t need a living will directive. We assume that our families will always look out for us and know exactly what to do. Unfortunately this is a hard decision for families to have to make during a crisis. Don’t leave this important decision to chance. See the related article on Terri Schiavo to understand the difficulties her family faced when she was suddenly unable to speak for herself.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 4:37 am and is filed under PrePaid Legal Help. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.