[Nursing care, legal incapacitation, guardianship. Basic principles of legal reform]

Abstract

If in the case of a person suffering from a mental disturbance or a major physical handicap, a long-term diminishment or loss of his ability to take reasonable care of his own legal affairs should occur, legal steps can be taken which since the beginning of the century have remained largely unchanged. A new law now takes account of the altered situation. In place of "incapacitation" (Entmündigung) and "guardianship" (Pflegschaft), the term "care" (Betreuung) has now been introduced, which has an effect on the question of the person's ability to conduct his own affairs only in exceptional cases. Basic aspects of this new law are considered from a psychiatric point of view.