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Understanding mental capacity
Understanding mental capacity

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Summary

The key learning points of this week are:

  • Mental capacity relates to decisions that can be everyday decisions like what to wear or more significant decisions like where to live.
  • There are ways of helping people to make decisions for themselves.
  • People have the right to make decisions that other people might think unwise, but this does not mean they lack the capacity to make a decision.

You should now be able to:

  • describe different types of decision and the ones that no one else can make
  • explain how decisions are made and what helps people make decisions
  • explain what is meant by, and who is, the decision maker when a person lacks mental capacity or has fluctuating mental capacity
  • describe in simple terms how decision makers decide
  • describe in simple terms what is meant by an unwise decision.