When You Can Not Speak for Yourself

June 2025

Stephanie Thomas

Known as advance directives, the Arizona Living Will and Healthcare Power of Attorney forms describe your wishes for medical care and appoint a trusted person to make medical decisions on your behalf. They take effect in the event a physician determines you are incapacitated and unable to make your own decisions. Valid throughout your lifetime, they can be changed at will.

Without a completed and legally binding living will and healthcare power of attorney, medical treatments that conflict with your beliefs may be used without your consent. Furthermore, your loved ones will inevitably face the emotional burden of making life and death decisions on your behalf. Without an appointed healthcare agent, disagreements may occur, and physicians may not know who should get the final say regarding how to proceed with your medical treatment.

Options in the living will allow you to define whether or not you want your life to be prolonged, what measures you want taken to keep you alive, as well as pain management, organ donation, refusal of medical care, and other medical preferences. A living will deals only with your medical treatment and is not related to your testamentary will about estate planning.

A Durable Power of Attorney for Healthcare is an advance directive legal document used to appoint someone (your agent) to make decisions for your medical care if you are unable to do so. You can appoint any trusted person: your spouse, a friend, a family member. Just make sure that this agent will respect your medical wishes and see that they are carried out if you cannot speak for yourself.

Arizona also provides an optional Mental Healthcare Directive in which you name an agent to be your spokesperson if you are declared incapacitated. This type of situation could arise from a stroke, coma, dementia, terminal illness or severe injury. The decision about whether you are incapable can only be made by a specialist in neurology or an Arizona licensed psychiatrist or psychologist who will evaluate whether you can give informed consent.

Once you have filled out the forms, you may choose to send a copy to the Arizona Healthcare Directive Registry where they will be electronically stored. The registry provides quick and easy access to your healthcare documents for medical personnel. This can be especially helpful in the event of an emergency when the responders do not know whom to contact.   (60 words)

These Arizona advance directives and the electronic registry application can be downloaded from the Internet. Notarization is not necessary for the advance directives; they only need a witness to be valid. Senior Village members may also call the Forms and Documents Team at 520-314-1042 for more information, a home visit or to request the forms.