Getting older means different things for different people. You may be considering where you want your career to go, whether it is time to start a family or even what you will do during retirement, depending on your age. No matter your age, however, it is important for you and other Nevada residents to have an estate plan.
You may have already created a will or taken other steps to start your estate-planning journey, which is immensely beneficial. Still, it is important that you do not just limit your plan to what will happen after your passing. In fact, you can use your estate plan to ensure that your wishes are known in the event that you suffer from an incapacitating event.
Advance medical directive
One document that you can add to your estate plan to ensure that your loved ones know your care wishes is an advance medical directive. This document can allow you to name a person you want to act on your behalf in the event that you cannot make sound decisions for yourself. You may not be able to voice your care wishes due to an incapacitating injury, illness or mental decline, and your directive can detail how you want certain care-matters handled.
What can you address?
You can use your document to indicate whether you want certain measures taken to extend your life in a potentially terminal situation and whether you want life-saving measures taken or to just receive care to make you as comfortable as possible in your final days. As you can tell, these decisions can be difficult to make, and you undoubtedly do not want to leave your family members in a position where they have to guess what you would have wanted.
You can use your directive to instruct your proxy as to whether you want life-support measures, whether you want medical staff to make resuscitation efforts, whether you want feeding tubes and what type of comfort care, if any, you would like.
How can you create one?
To ensure that you create your advance medical directive correctly and that it includes all the information you want to provide, it could be wise to enlist the help of a knowledgeable estate-planning attorney. This legal professional can further explain the benefits of this directive, along with how you can put it to use to ensure your care and to lift some of the burden from your loved ones.