Criteria for Placing Older Adults in Public Conservatorship: Age as Proxy for Need

This study was conducted on a sample of 589 adult public conservatees in Los Angeles County, California, to determine whether the process used to assign them into conservatorship is age-blind, as California law suggests. Findings indicate that age is not associated with the amount of time spent eval...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Gerontologist 1997-08, Vol.37 (4), p.518-526
Main Author: Reynolds, S L
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age
Aged
Aged, 80 and over
Ageism/Decision-making capacity
California
Conservatorship
Cross-Sectional Studies
Decision Making
Disability Evaluation
Female
Guardianship
Humans
Least-Squares Analysis
Legal Guardians - legislation & jurisprudence
Logistic Models
Los Angeles
Male
Mental Competency
Middle Aged
Odds Ratio
Older people
Prejudice
Surrogate decision making
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Description
Summary:This study was conducted on a sample of 589 adult public conservatees in Los Angeles County, California, to determine whether the process used to assign them into conservatorship is age-blind, as California law suggests. Findings indicate that age is not associated with the amount of time spent evaluating adults for conservatorship but that increasing age, rather than need, is associated with assignment into Probate conservatorship. The association of age with Probate conservatorship appears to result from the vagueness of the criteria for Probate conservatorship – unable to manage – resulting in the use of age as a proxy for need in the case of decisionally impaired older adults.
ISSN:0016-9013
1758-5341
DOI:10.1093/geront/37.4.518