New Jersey Advance health care directive means a witnessed written document, voluntarily executed by the declarant diagnosed as suffering from a terminal condition
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NJ Advance Directives for Health Care Act: New Jersey Health Care New Jersey Instruction Directive and Health Care Proxy Directive are designed to help you communicate your wishes now about medical treatment |
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There are several documents known as Advance Health Care directives in New Jersey.
The New Jersey Advance Directives for Health Care Act took effect on January 7, 1992. The advance directive for health care may be a "proxy directive" and/or an "instruction directive." A proxy directive involves the appointment of a health care representative, whom the individual empowers to make his or her health care decisions in the event of the individual's incapacity. An instruction directive is a statement of an individual's personal wishes with regard to health care in the event of loss of decision making capacity. When Does an Advance Directive Become Operative? An advance directive becomes operative when transmitted to the attending physician or health care institution and when the person is determined to lack capacity to make a particular health care decision. Such finding of a "lack of capacity" must be determined by an attending physician and verified by another physician. Remember, an Advance Directive may request that treatment be given, not just withheld or withdrawn. Copies of your advance directive should be shared with your doctor, your proxy if you choose to name one, your family and friends, anyone who might be called upon if you are in need of medical care and unable to make decisions. The law provides for the removal of life-sustaining treatment under limited circumstances. This treatment may be removed if the patient is permanently unconscious, the patient's condition is terminal, or if the treatment is experimental and is likely to be ineffective or is likely to merely prolong an imminent dying process. Life-sustaining treatment may also be withdrawn if the patient has a serious irreversible illness and the risks and burdens of the treatment reasonably outweigh the benefits of the treatment to the patient or imposition of treatment on an unwilling patient would be inhumane. If the circumstances described above do not exist, the living will does not apply and the validity of the advance directive will depend on certain constitutional issues involving the right to refuse treatment. Even a mentally incompetent patient's current wish that medically appropriate life-sustaining treatment be provided will take precedence over any decision made by a health care representative or any prior contrary statement in an instruction directive. Make sure to have your directive witnessed by two adults (if you choose to legally designate a person to make decisions for you, he or she cannot also be a witness). Before you start working on your Health Care Directive you shall know the following definitions: Artificially provided fluids and nutrition: The provision of food and water to seriously ill patients who are unable or unwilling to eat. Depending on the method used, such as insertion of a feeding tube or an intravenous line, the condition of the patient, techniques may involve minor surgery, continuous supervision by medical (and sometimes surgical) personnel, risk of injury or infection, and side effects. Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR): A treatment administered by health care professionals when a persons heartbeat and breathing stops. CPR may restore functioning if administered properly and in a timely fashion and may include the use of mechanical devices and/or drugs. Life-sustaining measures: Any medical procedure, device, artificially provided fluids and nutrition, drugs, surgery, or therapy that uses mechanical or other artificial means to sustain, restore or supplant a vital bodily function, thereby prolonging the life of a patient. Decision-making capacity: A patients ability to understand benefits and risks of a proposed medical treatment and its alternatives and to reach an informed decision. Health care representative or health care proxy: In the event an individual loses decision-making capacity, a health care representative or proxy is a person who has been legally designated to make decisions on his or her behalf. A health care representative is appointed through the execution of a proxy directive (a durable power of attorney for health care). Terminal condition: The terminal stage of irreversibly fatal illness, disease, or condition. While determination of a specific life expectancy is not required for a diagnosis of a terminal condition, a prognosis of a life expectancy of one year or less with or without the provision of life-sustaining treatment, is generally considered terminal. Permanent unconsciousness: A medical condition defined as total and irreversible loss of consciousness. The term permanently unconscious includes the conditions persistent vegetative state and irreversible coma. Patients in this condition cannot interact with their surroundings or others in any way and do not experience pleasure or pain. Persistent vegetative state: A condition of permanent unconsciousness in which the patient loses all capacity for interaction with their environment or other people. It is usually caused by an injury to the brain. It is normally not regarded as a terminal condition and with the aid of medical care and artificial fluids and nutrition patients can survive for many years. Incurable and irreversible chronic diseases: Disabling diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, organic brain syndrome or other diseases, which get progressively worse over time, eventually resulting in death. Depending on the disease, the patient may also experience partial or complete loss of physical and mental abilities. Because the rate at which these diseases advance may be slow, such diseases are not considered terminal in their early stages. Whole brain death: Death due to total and irreversible loss of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem. The criteria of whole brain death must be used to accurately determine death in individuals who have suffered massive or total brain damage but whose heart and lungs are kept functioning by machines. Brain dead individuals are not vegetative or in a coma, but are, in fact, dead. Attending physician: The doctor directly responsible for your medical treatment. He or she may or may not be your regular family physician. Depending on your health care needs, the attending physician may consult with others in order to diagnose and treat your medical condition, but he or she remains directly responsible for your care. |
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