Declarant
The person who signed the advance directive — named this way because the document speaks for them once they cannot.
What it means
The health-care directive statutes call the person who executed or issued the directive the declarant. It is the same person as the patient, and the statutes use a separate word on purpose: the directive has legal effect because that person made it, and the instructions in it are read as theirs even when a doctor, a hospital or a family member is the one holding the paper.
Everyone else in the document has a different name. The person appointed to speak is an agent, a proxy or a surrogate depending on the state; the doctors are attending or consulting physicians. Only the author is the declarant.
The word carries a practical rule with it. A declarant who still has capacity can revoke the directive, in most states by any means that communicates the intent — and what the declarant says now outranks what the declarant wrote.
Why it matters
It answers the question families ask at the bedside: whose decision is this. While the declarant can say, it is the declarant's, whatever the document provides.
It also identifies which signature matters. A directive that a family member filled in and the declarant never signed is not a directive.
When you are likely to meet it
- On the face of a living will or health-care directive form.
- When a hospital asks who executed the document.
- When a directive is being revoked or replaced.
How this varies by state
Not every state's directive statute uses the word — some say principal, some patient — and the rules for revocation, and for whether a directive from another state is honored, are set state by state.