A new law was enacted in Pennsylvania,effective January 29, 2007, which repealed the prior law on Advance Directives (also commonly called Living Wills). Under the old law, many of you, as part of your estate planning, executed Advance Directives. That document provided your physicians, nurses, family, and friends with instructions regarding your wishes for medical treatment once you had become terminally ill or permanently unconscious with no hope of recovery (i.e., whether you wished to withhold tube feeding and hydration, ventilators, surgery, blood products, etc.). The new law, which was influenced by the coordinated efforts between the legal and medical communities, continues to use these directives, now simply calling them Living Wills.

The new law adds an additional component, the Health Care Power of Attorney. This two-in-one estate planning document enables an individual (the principal) to appoint someone (an agent) to make medical decisions for him or her when he or she is temporarily incompetent to do so on his or her own but is not yet in the final stage of life. It also provides medical instructions under the Living Will which direct or guide an individual’s agent and physician once the individual enters into an end-stage medical condition or becomes permanently unconscious with no hope of recovery.

The new law takes effect on January 29, 2007. This new law does recognize Advance Directives signed under the prior law. However, if your current Advance Directive does not appoint a health care agent; specify whether your agent must strictly abide by your instructions or merely use your instructions as guidance; or have instructions regarding your care if you are in the advance stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, you may want to update your estate planning documents to include a new Living Will. The new law includes medical terms routinely used by medical providers that more clearly define when a Living will becomes operative.