Requests for physician-assisted death: guidelines for assessing mental capacity and impaired judgment.

This article fills a need in the theoretical and clinical literature by presenting a set of guidelines for assessing mental capacity and impaired judgment when a person makes a request to have physician-assisted death. Because Oregon is the only state to have a law allowing physician-assisted death, the guidelines are placed within the context of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. A comprehensive overview of the legal and ethical issues associated with the assessment of capacity precedes the actual guidelines.