Advance Directives and Polst Forms

Advance directives, or โ€œliving willsโ€, are written instructions that allow you to communicate, in advance, your wishes about care and treatment. Oregonโ€™s advance directives allow you to appoint a health care representative or medical power of attorney to make decisions for you, if you are unable to communicate.

Advance directives, or โ€œliving willsโ€, are written instructions that allow you to communicate, in advance, your wishes about care and treatment. Oregonโ€™s advance directives allow you to appoint a health care representative or medical power of attorney to make decisions for you, if you are unable to communicate.

You may ask for artificial feeding, mechanical ventilators, CPR, antibiotics, dialysis and other invasive procedures.

You may also want to include that you do not want life-prolonging treatments if you will never recover your physical or mental health. You may request that you do want your life prolonged as long as possible. You may also include what you would want under certain conditions: if you have dementia, if youโ€™re in a coma, if you have advanced disease, that youโ€™d want comfort measures or hospice.

If you donโ€™t make your wishes known, everything will be done to keep you alive. This can create stress for family members and friends who will have to make decisions on your behalf without knowing what you would have done. What we donโ€™t know can hurt us! Give doctors permission to be open and honestโ€“and to tell the truth. An advance directive is a โ€œgiftโ€ you can give your loved ones.

The POLST (Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) form is a brightly colored, medical order form that indicates what types of life-sustaining treatments you do or do not want if you become seriously ill. This is something your health care professional may write and keep in your medical record

The form is most appropriate for those who are seriously ill with a life-limiting or terminal prognosis. Your health care professional can use the POLST form to represent your wishes as clear, specific written medical orders.

A health care professional must sign this form in order for it to be followed by other health care professionals. Other health professionals who work with your health care professional may complete the form.

Itโ€™s recommended to have both.

All of our patients are offered both POLST and Advanced Directive forms. We can also assist the patient in filling out the POLST and with instructions for filling out the Advanced Directive. If you have questions or would like forms please call us at Lakeview Home Health and Hospice.

This information was lovingly lifted from our Oregon Hospice Association atย www.oregonhospice.org

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