Granted, it’s not a subject anyone enjoys thinking about, but planning for your care is of vital importance. After all, do you want anyone else making decisions for you about which nursing home or care facility you’ll be in or what happens to you if you become debilitated? If you want to make sure your wishes are carried out, you’ll want to consider advance care planning. Advance care planning puts you in charge of your future by letting you do the research and letting you decide where and how you wish to be cared for.
For instance, care planning can answer questions like:
- What to do if your heart stops. Do you want to resuscitated? If so, what methods are OK with you?
- Do you want to be artificially maintained with ventilators and other life-sustaining machines? If so, how long?
- Do you want to be artificially fed through feeding tubes?
- In the case of mental disability, dementia or cases where you don’t recognize loved ones, how would you want to be handled?
- Who would you choose to be your health care proxy? A health care proxy is essentially a close friend or family member who knows your wishes and can make decisions about your medical care.
Keep in mind that these decisions aren’t just for the elderly. Life is full of surprises and, should you become disabled from an accident, you’d want to know that you’ll be taken care of. An attorney at Vincent & Romeo, LLC can sit down with you, discuss your wishes, help make them official and help you find ways to pay for medical costs. See our Care Planning page for more information.