When is a person in a fit state to execute an enduring power of attorney or an advance health directive? The complex mix of legal, medical, and ethical issues continue to provide difficult, practical issues for individuals, their professional advisers, their families, and the courts and tribunals. This cross-disciplinary book analyses the law and the medical and psychological perspectives and includes case studies to highlight problems and suggest ways of resolution.

Mental Capacity:

• provides an overview of the framework of law within Australia;
• focuses on the law as it currently stands in relation to assessing mental capacity, including a consideration of the interaction between legal and medical standards;
• analyses the importance and difficulties of defining and judging capacity in the medical context;
• examines best practice in relation to health-based competency assessments; and
• looks at the role of the neuropsychologist in determining the extent and characteristics of cognitive impairment.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: An Overview of the Relevant Legal Principles - Berna Collier and Chris Coyne
CHAPTER 2: Legal Requirements and Current Practices - Jim Cockerill, Berna Collier, Kay Maxwell
CHAPTER 3: Mental Capacity in Medical Practice and Advance Care Planning: Clinical, Ethical and Legal Issues - Malcolm Parker and Colleen Cartwright
CHAPTER 4: Measuring Mental Capacity: Models, Methods and Tests - Karen Sullivan
CHAPTER 5: Capacity Assessment for Making an Advance Health Directive: The Role of a Neuropsychologist - Margaret Ambrose
Conclusion

"This is a useful little book which contains material not easily found elsewhere.... [It] notes that at present there are no standard set of tests for mental capacity. However, it discusses the various tests used by psychologists and discusses the philosophic concepts involved in making the assessment. The few Australian cases are discussed.... The book fills a niche in the market and should be useful to all those who have to deal with questions of when a person is capable of making serious decisions."

-- Australian Law Journal, Vol 79, November 2005