ABSTRACT
All adults need to plan for management of their health care and property in the event they later lose the ability to make and carry out their own decisions. In order to prevent the need for guardianship, people must make sure that a substitute decisionmaking plan is in place for both health care decisions and property management. The document that is used to delegate health care decisionmaking authority to someone else is usually called a health care proxy or power of attorney. The term “health care advance directive” is frequently used to include both living wills and health care proxies. The most common and cost-effective way to create a substitute decision-making plan for property and financial management is the durable power of attorney. All states have power of attorney laws that permit adults with decisionmaking capacity to give another person the authority to deal with their property and finances. The person who grants such authority is called the “principal.”
