What is Advance Care Planning?
Advance Care Planning involves making your decisions about your end-of-life treatment explicit, so that your family and friends, and the medical team that cares for you, will know what you require and respect your wishes. The law in Victoria supports you in this process. In this section, we explore two aspects of Advance Care Planning:
- appointing one or more Medical Treatment Decision Makers (MTDMs); and
- completing an Advance Care Directive (ACD).
You should appoint one or more MTDMs. These would usually be family members, such as your children, or a close friend. If you lose decision-making capacity (through illness, dementia, or sudden accident), your MTDM can make known what treatments you would or would not want.
You should also complete an ACD. Properly completed, this document has legal force to support your MTDM and direct medical staff about the treatments you do not want in case you lose the ability to communicate those instructions.
Medical Treatment Decision Makers
You should appoint one or more MTDMs. These would usually be family members, such as your children, or a close friend. If you lose decision-making capacity (through illness, dementia, or sudden accident), your MTDM can make known what treatments you would or would not want.
DWDV has two documents:
2a Appointment of a Medical Treatment Decision Maker. This form can be completed online and then printed.
2b Information for completing an Appointment of a Medical Treatment Decision Maker
Advance Care Directives
You should also fill out an ACD. Properly completed, this document has legal force to support your MTDM and to direct medical staff about the treatments you do not want in case you lose the ability to communicate those instructions.
DWDV has two documents:
3a Advance Care Directive. This form can be completed online and then printed out.
3b How to fill in an Advance Care Directive form