Assessing Mental Capacity

This practical, how-to handbook provides essential resources to help clinicians and other professionals assess mental capacity in key decisions. The book illustrates the basics of capacity assessments before discussing a variety of complex issues of which professionals will need to be aware. Offering expertise from a multi-disciplinary perspective, the book provides hands-on coverage of mental capacity law (concentrating on England and Wales).

This book is accompanied by online resources including semi-structured interviews and a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) questionnaire which can be downloaded and used for clinical cases, as well as further examples, information and tips. Please visit www.assessingcapacity.com.

Chapters are written by a variety of different professionals with extensive experience in the assessment of mental capacity. Coverage includes:

• Explanations of mental capacity law and how to put it into practice across a range of settings, services and populations
• A "how to" approach for administering assessments of mental capacity both for professionals who are new to the area and for more experienced professionals
• Information on practical aspects of assessing mental capacity for commonly occurring decisions and for more specialist and complex decisions
• Consideration of the best interests process and Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS).

With easily accessible information, case studies, examples from case law and internationally relevant discussions on ethical issues, this is the perfect companion to help busy professionals understand complex concepts relating to mental capacity.

Dr. Janice A. Mackenzie is a consultant clinical neuropsychologist who has a specialist interest in mental capacity dating back to 2002. She has published research, presented at conferences and provided training on mental capacity to numerous professionals. She developed a semi-structured interview which has been adapted for various different mental capacity assessments.

Dr. Kate E. Wilkinson is a consultant clinical neuropsychologist who has been carrying out complex capacity assessments since 2010 and has developed a particular interest in the complex ethical and sociopolitical aspects of such work. She routinely provides formal teaching, supervision and consultation on mental capacity to professionals from other disciplines.