Colorado Living Wills: Treatment Instructions for Qualifying Medical Conditions
A Colorado living will—legally called a declaration as to medical or surgical treatment—is a document you sign in advance that gives health-care providers specific instructions about life-sustaining treatment if you later cannot speak for yourself. It applies only under defined medical conditions, and it does not name anyone to make decisions for you.
When a Colorado living will applies
A Colorado living will generally applies when you lack decisional capacity and the required medical certifications establish that you have a terminal condition or are in a persistent vegetative state. Outside those statutory circumstances, the living will does not govern your care.
What can it address?
A living will may direct whether life-sustaining procedures should be withheld or withdrawn under its qualifying conditions.
Nutrition and hydration
The document may separately state your preferences concerning artificial nutrition and hydration when its statutory conditions apply.
What does it not do?
It does not appoint a health-care agent, control financial matters, or operate as a general medical order for every health condition.
How should it be coordinated?
Review it alongside your medical power of attorney and discuss the documents with the people who may be involved in your care.
Medical power of attorney vs. living will
A medical power of attorney names a person—your agent—to make health-care decisions within the authority you grant. A living will contains treatment instructions, not a decision-maker. The documents can work together: the agent generally follows applicable instructions in your living will when its conditions are met.
Other health-care planning tools serve different purposes
Among the five tools discussed here, a living will and medical power of attorney are estate-planning documents an attorney may prepare. The following tools use different medical or statutory processes.
CPR directive
A Colorado CPR directive is a medical order rather than an estate-planning document. It is completed with an authorized health-care professional and instructs emergency personnel and other providers not to attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
MOST form
A Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment form is also a clinician-signed medical order. It is generally used for a person with a serious illness or frailty and can address a broader range of interventions than a CPR directive. It is completed with an authorized health-care professional, not drafted by an attorney.
Medical aid in dying
Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act establishes a statutory process, not a standing advance directive. An eligible terminally ill adult must have a prognosis of six months or less, have mental capacity, personally request the medication, and self-administer it. A living will cannot authorize the process in advance, and an agent cannot invoke it for the patient.
Frequently asked questions
Does a living will replace a medical power of attorney?
No. A living will gives treatment instructions for qualifying circumstances; a medical power of attorney names a decision-maker. Many estate plans use both documents.
Can my living will authorize medical aid in dying later?
Generally, no. Colorado’s End-of-Life Options Act requires an eligible patient with mental capacity to personally request and self-administer the medication. An advance directive or health-care agent cannot invoke the process for the patient.
Who completes a MOST form or CPR directive?
These are medical orders completed with an authorized health-care professional, not documents an attorney drafts. An estate-planning attorney can explain how they differ from and may fit alongside a living will and medical power of attorney.
Can I change or revoke my living will?
Yes. Colorado law provides ways to revoke a living will. After making a change, communicate it to the people and health-care providers who have copies so that your current instructions are clear.
Discuss your Colorado estate plan
We can prepare your living will, coordinate it with your medical power of attorney, and explain how those estate-planning documents differ from medical orders such as a CPR directive or MOST form.
Official legal sources: Colorado Medical Treatment Decision Act, C.R.S. §§ 15-18-101 through 15-18-113; CPR directives, C.R.S. §§ 15-18.6-101 through 15-18.6-108; MOST forms, C.R.S. §§ 15-18.7-101 through 15-18.7-203; and Colorado End-of-Life Options Act, C.R.S. §§ 25-48-101 through 25-48-123. See the Colorado General Assembly’s current statutory titles, 2026 Red Book, and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s medical-aid-in-dying guidance. Legal sources reviewed July 23, 2026. This page provides general information, not medical or legal advice.
