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Do-Not-Resuscitate Order (DNR)
This document is necessary unless a person - particularly one with a painful, lingering, fatal illness or medical condition - wishes to have his/her body hooked up to machines that keep bodily functions going even after the brain has ceased to function.
The Do Not Resuscitate Order, or DNR for short, informs medical personnel that should one suffer a heart attack, stroke or respiratory arrest (stop breathing), they are not to take any attempts to revive him/her, nor use any type of life-saving procedure or piece of equipment.
Persons who have this sort of order in place are usually those who suffer from an incurable condition that causes a great deal of pain and suffering. The person can have their attorney include a DNR as part of a Living Will, which is an advance health care directive giving specific orders to caregivers should the individual become incapacitated. The individual's attorney can also prepare this as a stand alone document.
The rules governing DNRs differ from one state or province to the next, but there are some requirements that are common to all jurisdictions.
Generally, a DNR must be signed by the individual in question or by their legal surrogate health care decision maker (typically a spouse of immediate family member) and notarized. The document must explicitly state that medical personnel (MDs, RNs, EMTs or other) are not to take any resuscitative measures whatsoever (or must limit such actions to those specified in the document). In some states, the document maust be signed by a licensed physician.
It is worth understanding that in any event, resuscitation measures have a success rate of little more than 10%. Among patients who are successfully revived, a large number die afterwards, or suffer some kind of physiological or neurological damage that leave them permanently impaired.