What is a Power of Attorney for Personal Care?

A Power of Attorney for personal care (POA) is a document  giving decision-making authority over another person’s personal care. The person given the authority is called the attorney. The attorney is not usually a lawyer. In the POA context, the term attorney just means the person with legal authority.

Health and Personal Care Decisions

Personal care decisions include decisions about:

• health care
• nutrition
• shelter (housing)
• hygiene, and
• safety.

A primary example of a personal care decision is whether to continue to live in one’s home or to move into a seniors’ home or nursing facility. Other examples are whether to receive medical treatment or not, and even the decision to be kept alive on life support.

The POA for personal care is a very powerful document. Through it, a person gives their attorney complete authority over their future autonomy and person. As a result, the POA for personal care document can only be used when a person no longer has capacity to make their own personal care decisions.

To the extent a person continues to have capacity to make a particular personal care decision, the attorney for personal care should NOT make such decision for them.

In short, the POA for personal are can only be used when someone lacks capacity to make their own personal care decisions.

In contrast, the POA for property can be used for convenience while a person still has capacity, such as to run errands for the person, and can continue to be used by the attorney after the person has lost capacity.

Keywords: poa personal care, living will, healthcare poa, power of attorney healthcare