Metropolitan
What are advance directives?
General Power of Attorney is a legal document which gives the person you choose (the agent) the power to manage your assets and financial affairs while you are alive.A "durable" power of attorney stays valid even if you become unable to handle your own affairs (incapacitated).
If you don't specify that you want your power of attorney to be durable, it will automatically end if you later become incapacitated.
A "living will," which states your wishes for medical care if you become mentally or physically unable to make these decisions yourself.
A health care power of attorney is a document that allows someone to make medical decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself.
A do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order, (sometimes referred to as no code order), allows people to declare that they do not want certain resuscitative measures performed on them. This means that doctors, nurses and emergency medical personnel will NOT perform certain life saving or sustaining measures such as emergency CPR, if the patient's breathing or heartbeat stops, advanced airway management; defibrillation; or artificial ventilation.
A patient with a DNR order will continue to receive necessary treatments such as dialysis and antibiotic therapy. He or she will also continue to receive pain relief, meals, water, and other comfort care.
