Mental Health America of Virginia The voice of reason in mental health advocacy

Screen 1: Introduction to Advance Directives

Welcome the the advanced directive online tutorial. With this program you will be able to learn about legal tools like medical powers of attorney and psychiatric advanced directives while producing the actual documents themselves, ready to print and sign. Lets start with the basics. What exactly is a medical or psychiatric advanced directive? You are the expert on your own health care, but what happens if you become too ill or injured to make or communicate your decisions? Who makes the decisions then? An Advance Directive allows you to put in writing your choices about health care and decision-making now so that if you are ever unable to make or communicate these decisions your wishes will be known and followed. There are several options when completing an Advance Directive which we will explain in the following tutorials. You can decide now who will make decisions for you when you cannot do so for yourself. You can put in writing the kinds of care you would like to receive if you have a terminal illness. You can decide now what medical and psychiatric treatments and providers you like and don't like. We will explain each option and give you the choice to complete or skip the ones you choose.

How to Use This Program:

At the BOTTOM of each screen you will see blue links (when put your cursor above them they become underlined). When you click on these links they will take you to the next screen in the program or back to the previous screen.

Most pages will contain multiple choice questions or blank spaces where you can type in answers. After you answer questions or fill in blanks you MUST click the "Submit" button below the questions. If you do not click the "Submit" button the information will not be entered into your Power of Attorney, Medical Directive or Psychiatric Advanced Directive and severe errors may occur in the end document.

On some pages there will be a "Continue" button instead of a "Submit" button. The "Continue" button will take you to the next stage of data entry. You MUST press the "Continue" button, even if you don't want to submit any more information.

SECURITY: No information you provide will be saved or retained. Upon completion of the tutorial all data will be cleared.

Now click on the blue capitalized "NEXT" button at the bottom of the screen to progress to the next step in the tutorial.

NEXT - Screen 2: Power of attorney

This tutorial is a collaboration between Mental Health America of Virginia and the Virginia Office of Protection and Advocacy. It is generously funded by the Mental Health Block Grant, via the Office of Mental Health Services at the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS).