Arizona Advance Directive End-of-Life Choices: What You Can Legally Specify

Arizona Gives You More Control Than Most States

Most states restrict Living Will instructions to a narrow "terminal condition" trigger. Arizona's statute (A.R.S. § 36-3261) goes further — you can specify treatment preferences for terminal illness, persistent vegetative state, irreversible coma, and advanced dementia. That broader scope means you need to think through more scenarios, but it also means your wishes carry legal weight in situations that catch families off guard.

Your Arizona Living Will is where these choices live. It's separate from your Healthcare Power of Attorney (which names your decision-maker) and separate from your Mental Health POA (which covers psychiatric care). Each document handles a different domain.

The Five Core Treatment Decisions

Every Arizona Living Will should address these five categories explicitly. Leaving any blank creates ambiguity that forces your agent or a surrogate to guess.

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR)

If your heart stops or you stop breathing, should medical staff attempt to restart? CPR involves chest compressions, electric shocks, and intubation. For patients over 70 with multiple chronic conditions, survival rates after in-hospital CPR hover around 15-20%, and outcomes drop sharply for out-of-hospital arrests. Your Living Will can state that CPR should not be attempted under specified conditions.

For prehospital settings (ambulances, home), you need a separate Prehospital Medical Care Directive — Arizona's DNR form printed on orange paper under A.R.S. § 36-3251. The Living Will alone doesn't bind emergency responders.

Mechanical Ventilation

A ventilator breathes for you when your lungs can't. Your Living Will can specify: never place me on a ventilator, use it for a time-limited trial (e.g., 72 hours), or withdraw it if my condition is irreversible. Time-limited trials give your healthcare agent a clear decision point rather than open-ended life support.

Artificial Nutrition and Hydration

Tube feeding (NG tube or PEG tube) and IV fluids keep your body alive when you cannot eat or drink. Arizona law lets you decline these interventions. You can specify whether you want nutrition withheld only in terminal conditions, or also in vegetative states and advanced dementia. This is one of the most emotionally charged decisions — many families equate feeding tubes with "care" — which is exactly why documenting your preference in advance matters.

Comfort Care (Palliative Measures)

Comfort care focuses on pain management, symptom relief, and dignity rather than curative treatment. Your Living Will can state that you want "comfort measures only" once curative treatment is no longer effective. This includes pain medication (even if it might hasten death), repositioning, mouth care, and emotional support — but not antibiotics for new infections, dialysis, or surgical interventions.

Hospice Transition

Hospice provides end-of-life comfort care, typically for patients with a prognosis of six months or less. While hospice enrollment is a medical decision your agent makes (not something triggered automatically by your Living Will), you can include a directive stating your preference to transition to hospice care when curative treatment offers no meaningful benefit. This gives your agent explicit permission to make that call without guilt.

How These Choices Activate

Your Living Will doesn't take effect while you're conscious and capable of speaking for yourself. It activates when:

1. Your attending physician determines you have a "qualifying condition" (terminal illness, persistent vegetative state, irreversible coma)
2. You lack decision-making capacity (confirmed by your physician, sometimes with a second opinion)

Once both conditions are met, your documented choices become binding instructions for your medical team and your healthcare agent.

Putting It Together

The Arizona Attorney General's Life Care Planning Packet includes a Living Will template with checkboxes for these categories. But checkboxes don't capture nuance. A comprehensive approach adds specific clinical scenarios — "If I have advanced Alzheimer's and no longer recognize family members, I do not want..." — that remove ambiguity in the situations most likely to cause family conflict.

The Arizona Advance Directive & Living Will Kit walks through each treatment decision with plain-language explanations and a Clinical Values Matrix where you document your preferences across multiple diagnosis scenarios. Your agent gets a briefing guide so they understand not just what you chose, but why.

See more Arizona guides →