Capacity vs. competency.
Capacity is a clinical judgment about whether your parent can understand and make a specific decision right now; competency is a legal determination made by a court.
Capacity is medical and specific. A clinician judges whether your parent can understand the facts of a particular decision, weigh the options, and communicate a choice, right now. It can change with the situation and even the time of day, and a parent may have capacity for one decision but not another.
Competency is a legal status decided by a judge, not a doctor. A court can rule that a parent lacks the legal competency to manage their affairs, which is what can lead to guardianship.
The distinction matters in practice. A doctor saying your parent lacks capacity to consent to a treatment is not the same as a court declaring them incompetent, and the two follow different processes.
Where Kinbase fits
Terms like this one show up in real weeks, in a discharge folder or a doctor’s offhand remark. Kinbase gives your family one place to keep what you learn about your parent’s care, so the next person helping is not starting from scratch.
Start your family’s record.
Name the book, invite the people who help, and the record starts keeping itself. Most families are set up inside ten minutes.
Free for families to start. Everyone you invite joins from a link or by scanning a code, and nobody has to install anything to read or write.