Jackson Free Press

If you are a child with aging parents, or a caring parent with foresight for your children, here are some of the documents that will help you deal with end of life decisions. As difficult as they may be to complete, they will be a comfort during times of high stress and crisis.

• Power of Attorney. This document allows someone else to make binding legal decisions on your behalf. This may include signing checks and other financial instruments, or selling and acquiring property and other assets. It can be general or specific, depending on your wishes and needs. A Medical Power of Attorney gives someone else the power to make medical decisions on your behalf if you are temporarily or permanently unable to do so. A Durable Power of Attorney stays in effect even if you become incapacitated. Download Power of Attorney forms from sites such as http://www.uslegalforms.com, or have a lawyer draw them up.

• Advance Health Care Directive or Living Will. This document instructs your family and medical personnel on the kinds of life-saving treatments to use if you become incapacitated. Among the instructions you can leave are your wishes to use (or not use) cardiopulmonary resuscitation when your heart or breathing stops, or artificial nutrition and hydration when you are no longer able to eat or drink by mouth. You can also sign a Do Not Resuscitate, or DNR, order, which is a physician's order that prevents the health-care team from initiating CPR under certain circumstances, and a Do Not Intubate, or DNI, to prevent doctors from placing a tube into your nose or mouth to help you breathe. Download Mississippi Advance Health Care Directive documents from the state Department of Health website (http://www.msdh.state.ms.us).

• Will. This document spells out how your assets will be divided among your descendants and can include your wishes for your body after death (organ donation, burial, cremation, etc.). Make this document as specific as possible, and update it to reflect major life changes such as a divorce or a change in your financial situation. When my dad died, I found that his 25-year-old will was basically null and void. That will caused some dissention among my siblings. We could have avoided some pain with an updated will. Generally, a lawyer should draw up your will; however, a hand-written will is legally binding in Mississippi.