Preventive power of attorney
By means of the Power of Attorney, the person appoints a person, persons or institution to act on behalf of their interests. It gives them the power to make arrangements for their material goods or legal rights in order to be economically protected.
The person who issues the document always retains the possibility of revoking it at will, being able to establish the reasons why the power could be extinguished. It is effective during life and ceases with the death of the person.
Interested parties should ask their lawyer.
Self protection
Self-guardianship is an instrument of Civil Law that empowers the person concerned to appoint or exclude another person or institution so that, in the event of being declared incapable, it will take care of them (becoming their guardian) and of their interests and assets (becoming their administrator). You can also appoint surrogates and state how you want to be served and how you want your assets to be managed.
This document is always revocable by the grantor. Its effects extend throughout the person’s life and are extinguished when the person dies.
Interested parties should ask their attorney.
Anticipated Living Wills
The Declaration of Anticipated Vital Will is a written document that contains the preferences on the care and sanitary treatments that we wish to receive so that they are fulfilled at the moment in which we do not have the capacity to express them personally. It also allows us to choose a person we trust, a representative, to decide for us when we are in that situation. In addition, we may even choose a second representative, a surrogate, to intervene if the first representative is unable to do so for some reason.
Once your Anticipated Will is recorded, an entry will be incorporated from your medical record so that health care personnel can consult it when necessary and ensure that your wishes and preferences are respected.
As long as you have adequate capacity to communicate your preferences, the medical staff will take into account what you say at that time, not what is written in Advance Living Will. What you write will only be undertaken in situations where you are unable to make decisions about your care or treatment because you are unconscious, in a coma or simply unable to decide.
Legal incapacitation
The legal incapacitation of a person suffering from Alzheimer’s can be resorted to when this person has not granted preventive powers or constituted a self-guardianship and are no longer in a position to make decisions on their own. Its aim is to protect the sick person from his or her own poor decisions as a consequence of the illness he or she is suffering from.
This procedure can only be initiated at the request of the spouse or descendants (children or grandchildren), ascendants (parents or grandparents), siblings or the Public Prosecutor’s Office. If there are no immediate family members, anyone who knows the situation may report it to the Public Prosecutor’s Office so that the latter can initiate the process.
Legal incapacitation is usually the last resort to protect the sick person and must be requested before a judge.