Assessing Decision Making Capacity (DMC)

Decision-Making Capacity

Learning Objectives

Define decisional capacity ?
Identify patients at risk for impaired decisional capacity ?
Know how to assess decisional capacity

What is decisional capacity?
What percentage of medical inpatients lack decisional capacity?
What are some risk factors for impaired decisional capacity?

What is Decision-Making Capacity, and how does it differ from Competence?
What is Informed Consent?
When is Explicit Assessment of Decisional Capacity Required?
Procedures for Assessing Decision-Making Capacity
What if a potential study participant fails to demonstrate adequate decisional capacity?
Do you need to assess this patient’s decisional capacity? Which patients need formal assessment?
How do you assess decisional capacity? What elements are involved?
Once you have decided that a patient lacks decisional capacity for a particular decision, does he necessarily lack it for all decisions?
If the patient lacks decisional capacity, what do you do next?

How is decision-making capacity relevant to medicine?
What are the standards for assessing decision-making capacity?
Who decides whether a patient has decision-making capacity?
How do you determine whether a patient has decision-making capacity?
How are decisions made for patients who lack decision-making capacity?