TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) — Supporters of Terri Schiavo’s parents planned last-chance efforts in Florida and Washington on Monday aimed at winning the life-and-death fight to have the brain-damaged woman’s feeding tube reinserted.

Schiavo, who hasn’t had water or nutrients in 11 days, is likely to die by week’s end, doctors have said.

San Francisco attorney Helene V. Wenzel, commenting on the Schiavo case, said the tragedy “raises complex and emotionally laden issues concerning who has control of continuity and quality of a life.”

“As an elder law attorney, I am all too aware that such scenarios are becoming more common as our population ages and people’s lives can be and are maintained long after quality of life has for all intents and purposes ended,” Wenzel added.

Without powers of attorney for health care, a Schiavo situation is all too likely to occur, explained Wenzel. “What is happening to Terri and her family is tragic; but it will have served a larger and noble purpose if it sends healthy people off to an attorney’s office (or a stationery store) to execute these very important documents,” she said.

For more information about living wills, or to create a living will from home, click here.

While purchasing stationery store or downloading forms may provide a cost-effective way to execute living wills, attorneys like Wenzel specialize in drafting a more complete estate plan which will include an Advance Health Care Directive. Unlike a living will which only directs end of life treatment, an Advance Health Care Directive may also have a durable power of attorney for health care. This part of the document nominates a person to act as a health care agent to carry out the principal’s wishes concerning medical procedures as well as end of life care after he or she no longer has the capacity to make any wishes known.