Ethics, Advance Directives Ethics, Advance Directives Advance directives is the generic term for instructions a competent patient gives regarding their health care in the event they are no longer competent or able to make decisions. Advance directives come in two forms, instructional and proxy .
Instructional directives provide details about preferences for anticipated treatment decisions.
Proxy advance directives identify an individual who has the patient s permission to make treatment decisions on their behalf. These advance directives may be done as a single or as two documents. They are legal in every state and the District of Colombia. Different states have varying legal criteria involving notaries, witnesses, and forms to be used, but even documents that do not meet the legal criteria carry a moral weight in medical decision making. The proxy advance directive is probably the more important of the two advance directives because it has the most flexibility.