It is a very good idea to create advance directives in order to plan for the possibility that you may one day be unable to make your own medical decisions. In doing so, there can be confusion about the difference between a living will and a “do-not-resuscitate” order (DNR). While both these documents are advanced medical directives, they serve different purposes.
Michael Monteforte, Jr. is the founding attorney of Monteforte Law, P.C., an estate planning and elder law firm in Woburn, Massachusetts. He was admitted to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in January 2002 and to federal practice in the U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, in March 2006. He has practiced estate planning and elder law in Massachusetts for over twenty years.