What legal documents allow people to specify medical care wishes if they cannot decide for themselves?

• A. Informed Consent
• B. Health Proxy
• C. Durable Power of Attorney
• D. Advance Directives

Answer: (D)

Advance directives are the tools that let someone spell out their medical care preferences for when they can’t communicate them themselves, and they can also designate who should make those decisions. This category includes living wills that specify what treatments a person wants or doesn’t want, and it can include appointing a surrogate decision-maker, so the chosen person can advocate for the patient’s wishes. Because it covers both the specific treatment preferences and the appointment of a decision-maker, it’s the most fitting answer to how people control medical care in advance.

Informed consent, by contrast, is about agreeing to a proposed treatment at the moment care is being given, based on the information provided then. A health proxy or durable power of attorney are mechanisms within the broader idea of advance directives, providing a designated decision-maker, but the umbrella term that captures the purpose of specifying wishes in advance is advance directives.