A Prospective Study of Advance Directives for Life-Sustaining Care

The practice of medicine in the United States is imbued with the principle that patients have the right of self-determination. 1 , 2 The most supreme exercise of this right occurs when patients consent to life-sustaining treatments or refuse them. 3 Unfortunately, patients are often incapable of participating in the decision to use life-sustaining treatments when the need arises. To preserve their autonomy in such situations, advance directives such as the living will have been created. 4 , 5 Advance directives allow competent persons to extend their right of self-determination into the future, by recording choices that are intended to influence their future care should they become . . .