La. R.S. 40:1151 et seq. · Louisiana
Louisiana: how to sign your advance directive
Louisiana calls the instrument a declaration, and the statute begins by saying it is not the only way. §1151(A)(4) and (B)(3) each provide that nothing in the Subpart "shall be construed to be the exclusive means by which life-sustaining procedures may be withheld or withdrawn." The legislature's stated intent is that these provisions are "permissive and voluntary" and that a declaration "merely illustrates a means of documenting" the decision.
Why WearableDocs
In Louisiana, a signed directive in a drawer is not enough
The statute makes delivery — or getting the document into the medical record — part of what switches the directive on. A relative who might know which drawer is not a plan. WearableDocs stores the document you signed and puts it on a page that opens when someone scans your card, so the person who needs it can build the record while there is still time.
You answer a few questions — your name, your state, and what you refuse — and WearableDocs builds the directive. Print it, sign it, upload it. Changing your answers later is part of the plan, so nothing is locked in.
What Louisiana asks
What you need to sign in Louisiana
- Instruments
- One declaration concerning life-sustaining procedures, which may carry a designee (§1151.2(C)(1)). A do-not-resuscitate identification bracelet issued by the Secretary of State is a separate thing
- Form
- Illustrative — §1151.2(C)(1): the declaration "may, but need not, be in the following illustrative form"
- Execution
- Two witnesses, no notary. A written declaration is signed by the declarant "in the presence of two witnesses"; an oral or nonverbal declaration is made before two witnesses (§1151.2(A)(2)–(3))
- May not witness
- A "witness" is "a competent adult who is not related to the declarant ... by blood or marriage and who would not be entitled to any portion of the estate" (§1151.1(15))
- Copy rule
- Only a registry copy is addressed. A copy or facsimile "transmitted from the office of the secretary of state shall be deemed authentic" (§1151.2(D)(2))
- Delivery
- No precondition, and a duty on you. "It shall be the responsibility of the declarant to notify his attending physician that a declaration has been made" (§1151.2(B)(1)), and the physician then files it. But "nothing herein requires a physician or health care facility to confirm the existence of such declaration or obtain a copy thereof prior to the withholding or withdrawal" (§1151.2(D)(2))
- Who decides
- Two physicians, one of whom must be the attending, who have "personally examined the patient" and certified in writing that the condition is terminal and irreversible (§1151.1(11))
- Registry
- Yes — a declaration registry kept by the Secretary of State. The original, a multiple original or a certified copy may be registered; the Secretary of State confirms a declaration's existence and contents on request from a physician or facility (§1151.2(D))
- Age
- 18 — "minor" means a person under 18 (§1151.1(9))
- Revocation
- At any time, and not dependent on mental state. By destroying the document, by a signed and dated writing, or by an oral or nonverbal expression — effective "upon communication to the attending physician." A registered declaration is revoked by filing written notice with the Secretary of State, and until the notation is made "any physician or health care facility acting in good faith may rely upon the validity of the declaration" (§1151.3)
- Oral instructions
- Yes. §1151.1(4) — a declaration "may be made in writing, orally, or by other means of nonverbal communication"; §1151.2(A)(3) sets the two-witness rule and the terminal-diagnosis condition
- Carried device
- Yes — for the DNR bracelet. Issued by the Secretary of State; a copy or facsimile from that office is "deemed authentic"
- Citation
- La. R.S. 40:1151 et seq.
Read from the enacted statute, 2026-09-18.
The instrument
What Louisiana actually recognizes
What a declaration can carry is wider than in most states. It directs the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures, and it "may include other specific directions including but not limited to a designation of another person to make the treatment decision for the declarant" (§1151.2(C)(1)). The designee lives inside the declaration.
It also need not be written. §1151.1(4) defines a declaration as "a witnessed document, statement, or expression", and §1151.2(A)(3) allows an oral or nonverbal declaration made in the presence of two witnesses "at any time subsequent to the diagnosis of a terminal and irreversible condition."
And Louisiana keeps a registry — which is also where the DNR bracelet comes from.
What the popular guides get wrong
Corrections for Louisiana
"A Louisiana declaration has to be written." It does not. The statute defines a declaration as "a witnessed document, statement, or expression" (§1151.1(4)) and lists the three forms it may take — "in writing, orally, or by other means of nonverbal communication." An oral or nonverbal declaration is made in the presence of two witnesses, and the statute ties it to a moment rather than a document: it may be made "at any time subsequent to the diagnosis of a terminal and irreversible condition" (§1151.2(A)(3)). A Louisianan who cannot sign, or who never got round to a form, is not without the instrument.
Carried on you
What a WearableDocs card does in Louisiana
Louisiana gives a carried device real force, and it is specific about which instrument that force belongs to.
The Secretary of State "shall issue a do-not-resuscitate identification bracelet to qualified patients listed in the registry", and the bracelet "must include the patient's name, date of birth, and the phrase 'DO NOT RESUSCITATE'." (§1151.2(D)(1)(b))
§1151.2(D)(2) then makes the paperwork travel: a copy of the declaration, or a facsimile, "transmitted from the office of the secretary of state shall be deemed authentic." No verification step is required of the treating physician.
Two things follow, and both belong on the page. The bracelet is a DNR instrument — it is not a way of carrying your declaration, and Louisiana gives the declaration itself no force because it is carried or worn. And the bracelet is issued to patients "listed in the registry": registration is what puts it on your wrist.
The declaration travels differently. Louisiana puts the duty to notify on the declarant — "It shall be the responsibility of the declarant to notify his attending physician" (§1151.2(B)(1)) — and simultaneously relieves the provider of any duty to go looking (§1151.2(D)(2)). Nobody is obliged to find it. That is the whole case for putting it where someone will.