What is an advance directive?

What is an advance directive?

Karl Steinberg (Associate Medical Director, Sharp Mission Park Medical Group) gives expert video advice on: How does 'power of attorney' affect long-term care?; What is an advance directive?; Why are advance directives important? and more...

An advance directive is any of a variety of documents that make your wishes known. It is essentially the preferred intensity of care that you would want to receive in certain situations. There is a whole variety of how sophisticated these documents are. It's an advance directive, not advanced. A lot of people misuse that term. Some of them are not very advanced at all; they are very, very simple. They just say, if I'm incapacitated I want my daughter, Mary, to make the decisions on my behalf. Whereas there are others that are very complex that would say, I don't want a feeding tube, I would consider short term IVs, I don't want to be on a ventilator, and very specific types of directives.