• A living will lets healthy individuals outline medical care wishes in advance.lit d'hopital image by photlook from Fotolia.com
  
  Imagine a sudden accident or health failure leaves you hospitalized, unconscious and dependent on artificial means for life support. How medical professionals proceed depends on the information they have available from you. One document that preemptively determines medical procedure is the living will. It outlines an individual's wishes with regard to cases of life-threatening illness or incapacity, legally determining a medical provider's course of action.
  
  

Regulations

• The laws regulating living wills vary by state. Depending on the state, a notary public may need to witness and notarize a living will for it to be valid. Based on state law, there may also be a delay period between signing a living will and its coming into effect. In some states, the subject of the living will may have the authority to determine the length of this period. Once a person is in an unconscious state, such as a coma, there may be a set period of time, which must pass before the actions of the living will may be carried out.
  
  

Scope

• While the specific scope of a living will varies according to state law, a living will generally applies to decisions regarding the use of life-supporting medical devices. This may include the choice whether to use intravenous devices for food and water, heart-lung machines, ventilators or other devices, which sustain life without directly treating a medical condition. A living will typically allows individuals to outline the factors and scenarios that determine their decisions. For example, you might prefer that life-sustaining technologies be used only in a terminal condition, in an end-of-life condition, in a persistent vegetative state or in any similar cases.
  
  

Limitations

• The living will is only one kind of advance-directive document. Different advance directives affect the various decisions that may arise in situations of lost consciousness or severe medical failure. The living will alone does not cover a number of important decisions. In order to designate another person to make legal decisions on your behalf, a secondary advance directive, known as a durable power of attorney or health care proxy is necessary. To request that hospitals do not resuscitate in case of cardiopulmonary failure, a "Do Not Resuscitate" or "DNR" is necessary. If no advance directive other than a living will is provided, the hospital or medical caretaker is legally obligated to make all reasonable attempts to resuscitate a patient whose heart has stopped beating.