There are two standards adopted for making decisions on behalf of incompetent patients which are ‘best interests’ (objective) and ‘substitutive judgement’ (subjective). ‘Best interests’ (objective) is where a decision maker must choose the treatment that would be the most beneficial for the patient. This standard is mainly used for those who have never been competent but it is sometimes applied in emergency situations. Compared to ‘substitutive judgement’ (subjective), it is a condition where the decision maker must provide the treatment that the patient would have chosen if he was still competent. This standard is mainly used for those who were once competent but are no longer. Substituted judgements tend to be based on quality, rather than
