Abstract
Contemporary medical care perceives a patient as an independent and autonomous personality capable of participating in the decision-making process which determines their treatment, thereby seeing them also as capable of influencing their own future. The aspects which are nowadays being stressed include human rights and dignity, respect for one's autonomy or the right of self-determination.
A way these rights can be used in healthcare is by applying the institute of advance directives. This means that through the advance directives, one can express their consent or opposition to the provision of health services or to the specific form of their provision; it is thus possible to refuse treatment in states of both health and disease.
In essence, AD represent a written expression of the patient's will for the event that he or she would no longer be able to express it. This reason may be terminally or incurably ill.