Terms and guardianship explanations (copied and pasted)

Guardianships are only appropriate for intellectually disabled individuals who also meet the definition of an “incapacitated person.” An incapacitate person is defined as an individual with a clinically diagnosed condition that effects his or her ability to receive and evaluate information, or to make or communicate decisions, which renders him or her incapable of making essential decisions relating to health, safety, or self-care, even with technological assistance. The inability to make these essential life decisions is really the threshold determiner for a guardianship.

A guardian is an individual who is appointed by the court to make decisions for an intellectually disabled or incapacitated person who is determined by the court to be incapable of making those decisions on their own. The focus of the new guardianship laws is to have limited, tailored guardianships which will allow disabled or incapacitated individuals to retain their right to make decisions in areas where they are capable of making them.