living will
Meaning of living will: A living will is a written legal document that states a person's preferences for future medical care if they can no longer communicate them.
Definition of living will
A living will is a type of legal advance directive, a document prepared while a person is able to make decisions, that describes the specific medical treatments that person wants or does not want if a future illness or injury leaves them unable to communicate their wishes directly. It generally addresses situations involving a terminal or irreversible condition.
A living will commonly addresses whether to use aggressive life sustaining measures, such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, or artificial nutrition and hydration, and under what circumstances those measures should or should not be used. Because it is prepared in advance, it is intended to guide care according to the person's own previously stated wishes.
A living will differs from a health care power of attorney, which instead names another person to make medical decisions on someone's behalf, rather than specifying the treatments themselves. The two documents are often prepared together as part of broader advance care planning.
Used in a sentence
The patient's living will indicated a wish to avoid mechanical ventilation in the event of an irreversible condition.
Good to know
A living will specifies particular treatments to use or avoid, while a health care power of attorney designates a decision maker, a distinction that matters when the two documents are not perfectly aligned or a situation arises that the living will did not anticipate.