Decision box

• A person is considered incapacitated when they are unable to take care of themselves, manage their property, or express their wishes.
• Incapacity can be caused by a mental or degenerative illness, a stroke, an intellectual disability, a head injury, or a weakened state as a result of disease.
• Persons who are incapacitated may continue to manage their affairs and make decisions regarding their health themselves, provided the court has not deprived them of their legal capacities.
• The courts may determine legal incapacity further to an incapacity finding (for more information, see the printable decision box).

• Difficulty following a familiar recipe.
• Hesitation when performing simple tasks like locking the door or getting dressed.
• Changes in their spending habits or budget management.

• An official, notarized or holograph document (for more infromation see the printable decision box)
• Allows a person to:
  • Express their wishes about how they would like to be looked after and how their property is to be managed in the event they are incapacitated.
  • Knowingly appoint the person of their choice to act on their behalf in the event they are incapacitated.
• Includes advance medical directives that allow the person to express their care preferences (consent to care, end-of-life care wishes), for example, to avoid non-beneficial medical care.
• The protection mandate allows you to appoint one or more persons to look after you and your property while you are still alive.
• A protection mandate is not a will. The purpose of a will is strictly to state how and to whom your property will be distributed after your death.
• The protection mandate annuls all the powers of attorney authorized by the person (e.g., for their banking, or to look after them or manage their property).

• Any person considered of sound mind, especially those with a medical condition that puts them at greater risk of becoming incapacitated and unable to care for themselves or their property.
   

1. Choose what you want to indicate in the mandate, e.g., mandatary, housing preferences, consent to care, preferences regarding property management, end-of-life wishes.
2. Discuss with your loved ones your desire to draw up a protection mandate.
3. Choose one or more mandataries.
4. Prepare your mandate with the help of a professional (lawyer or notary) or using the online form (for more information, see the printable decision box).
5. Let your loved ones know about your protection mandate, and keep a copy of it in a safe place.

Another type of protection regime will be instituted, and a tutor or curator will be appointed (for more information, see the printable decision box).

Depending on their priorities, patients may decide to prepare a protection mandate or not. The choice is up to them because...

• There are pros and cons to preparing a mandate.
• There is a lack of scientific information on the impacts of preparing a protection mandate.