Decision Making Capacity Assessment (DMCA) Research Group

A person's decision-making ability or capacity is dependent on both the complexity of the decision-making process and one's ability to engage in that process. The degree of impairment regarding one's decision making capacity DMC can vary as a result of developmental or disease processes, cognitive impairment, or brain injury.

As the life expectancy of Canadians increases and the prevalence of complex chronic health conditions continues to rise, assessment of independent DMC is becoming an issue of increasing importance for caregivers. For this reason the Decision Making Capacity Assessment (DMCA) Model was developed in 2006 (initially by Covenant Health and then with input from stakeholders from across Alberta) to facilitate a process by which the least restrictive and intrusive means of interdisciplinary support can be determined and offered to persons whose decision making has come into question.