1. Advance Care Planning A Guide For Patients and Families

2. What is 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.

3. What is Advance Care Planning?  Advance Care Planning is:  A continual process and not merely a document or isolated event.  May include the use of Advance Directives (l egal documents that state an individual’s preferences in care for life-threatening illness).

4. Types of Advance Directives  Health Care Proxy  Do Not Resuscitate (DNR)  Living Will  Durable Power of Attorney (DPOA)  Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST)

5. What is a Health Care Proxy?  A document in which a patient with decision-making capacity appoints a health care agent to make decisions about medical care in the event that the patient subsequently becomes incapable of making those decisions.

6. What is a DNR?  A Do Not Resuscitate document is a legal document that states resuscitation should not be attempted if a person suffers cardiac or respiratory arrest.

7. What is a Living Will?  A document in which a person with decision-making capacity expresses his/her wishes to receive or not receive certain life-sustaining treatments in the event that he/she becomes terminally ill and loses decision-making capacity in the future.

8. What is a Durable Power of Attorney?  A legal document empowering a designated person to act on another person's behalf.  DPOAs allow an individual to transfer medical decision-making authority to another in the event that the individual loses the ability to make these decisions.

9. What is a MOLST?  A Medical Orders For Life- Sustaining Treatment form is used for those who are seriously ill or at the end of their lives. It is used to translate patient/resident goals and preferences into medical orders.

10. Benefits of Advance Care Planning  Advance Care Planning:  Assists you in preparing for a sudden unexpected illness.  Allows you to maintain control over how you are treated.  Ensures that you experience the type of care that you desire.

11. For more information about Advanced Care Planning, contact St. Peter’s Mission Services at 525-6757 or visit www.compassionandsupport.com