Power of Attorney for Personal Care: Power and Responsibility
What is a Power of Attorney for Personal Care?
There are generally two kinds of Power of Attorney (POA) documents:
- Power of Attorney (POA) for property, and
- Power of Attorney (POA) for personal care.
Each document serves a different purpose.
The person making the Power of Attorney document is called the “grantor”, because they are granting authority upon another person. Throughout this article and this website, the grantor is usually referred to as the “person.”
By making the Power of Attorney document, a person transfers future decision-making authority to another (their named “attorney”). In the POA context, attorney does not mean lawyer – it means someone named in the POA document to have legal authority.
Power and Responsibility
The Power of Attorney (POA) for personal care is a very powerful document.
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 attorney for personal care has the ultimate responsibility for these matters when a person lacks capacity to make such decisions.
By making a POA for personal care, a person gives their attorney power over their future autonomy and person, should the person become incapable in the future. 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 that a person continues to have capacity to make a particular personal care decision, the attorney for personal care should not make such decision for the person.
