Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue?
Adequate cognitive and emotional capacity is essential to autonomous decision making by adult medical patients. Society often attaches legal consequences to decisional capacity evaluations. Even when the legal system is not formally involved in the competency evaluation of a particular individual, c...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2015-05-01
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| Series: | Laws |
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| Online Access: | http://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/4/2/164 |
| _version_ | 1797999665589780480 |
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| author | Marshall B. Kapp |
| author_facet | Marshall B. Kapp |
| author_sort | Marshall B. Kapp |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Adequate cognitive and emotional capacity is essential to autonomous decision making by adult medical patients. Society often attaches legal consequences to decisional capacity evaluations. Even when the legal system is not formally involved in the competency evaluation of a particular individual, clinical practice and ethical conduct occur within and are informed by legal parameters. Using relevant statutory, court rule, and judicial opinion examples from a representative jurisdiction within the United States, this article argues that the law seldom provides much meaningful guidance to health care and human services providers to assist them regarding the content of capacity evaluation. The article concludes by asking how society ought to respond to the paucity of helpful guidance provided by the law in the decisional capacity evaluation context. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-11T11:07:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2782037034a244a490b4c0bf963cc206 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2075-471X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-11T11:07:05Z |
| publishDate | 2015-05-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Laws |
| spelling | doaj.art-2782037034a244a490b4c0bf963cc2062022-12-22T04:28:14ZengMDPI AGLaws2075-471X2015-05-014216417210.3390/laws4020164laws4020164Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue?Marshall B. Kapp0Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine & Law, Florida State University, College of Medicine and College of Law, 1115 W. Call Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306-4300, USAAdequate cognitive and emotional capacity is essential to autonomous decision making by adult medical patients. Society often attaches legal consequences to decisional capacity evaluations. Even when the legal system is not formally involved in the competency evaluation of a particular individual, clinical practice and ethical conduct occur within and are informed by legal parameters. Using relevant statutory, court rule, and judicial opinion examples from a representative jurisdiction within the United States, this article argues that the law seldom provides much meaningful guidance to health care and human services providers to assist them regarding the content of capacity evaluation. The article concludes by asking how society ought to respond to the paucity of helpful guidance provided by the law in the decisional capacity evaluation context.http://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/4/2/164legaljurisprudenceguardianshipcapacitycompetenceethics |
| spellingShingle | Marshall B. Kapp Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue? Laws legal jurisprudence guardianship capacity competence ethics |
| title | Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue? |
| title_full | Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue? |
| title_fullStr | Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue? |
| title_short | Evaluating Decision Making Capacity in Older Individuals: Does the Law Give a Clue? |
| title_sort | evaluating decision making capacity in older individuals does the law give a clue |
| topic | legal jurisprudence guardianship capacity competence ethics |
| url | http://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/4/2/164 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT marshallbkapp evaluatingdecisionmakingcapacityinolderindividualsdoesthelawgiveaclue |