Kalamazoo Living Wills Lawyers

Living Will Michigan

A person who is terminally ill has very difficult decisions to make. When the chances of recovering from a debilitating disease are slim or none, a person is forced to weigh a number of factors, including the following:

• Cost of the medical treatment to his or her family
• How much of the cost of the treatment is covered by medical insurance, if any
• How much suffering is caused by the illness and/or side effects of the medical treatment
• To what extent the person is still able to enjoy life

Helping Yourself and Your Family with a Living Will

What can be even more difficult is the situation faced by a patient's family when the patient is unable to make medical decisions on his or her own behalf. Families may agonize over making the right medical decisions, and if the patient's wishes were made explicit before he or she became incapacitated, family members may still disagree about what the patient's wishes would have been.

Making a living will can give your family the reassurance that they are respecting your wishes when making these decisions. A living will is a document written by a person who is legally competent that specifies what types of medical treatment are desired if he or she is severely disabled or suffering from a terminal illness. Kalamazoo or Grand Rapids living wills may be very general — for example, making the request to not be kept on artificial life support — or very specific, stating whether or not the person desires such medical services as pain relief, ventilators, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, artificial feeding or hydration.