[Legal guardianship in psychiatric consultation]

The goal of the new guardianship law in Germany, in effect since 1992, is to enable the mentally ill to lead as independent a life as possible and as long as possible without any legal action. However, a comparison of 81 (1991) cases decided under the old law and 82 (1992) decided under the revised law as part of a psychiatric liaison service at a large general hospital showed that in practice the benefits for one of the main groups affected, elderly patients with dementia, might be relatively small. There are two reasons for this: the legal decision about incompetency has become more complicated and the social circumstances of the individuals affected can be changed very little by the law.