Guardianship for adults in Japan: Legal reforms and advances in practice.

Major law reforms in Japan established a new system of guardianship for adults that took effect from early 2000, coinciding with the introduction of Japan's new long-term care insurance scheme. The new legislation created a new form of advisership, alongside reforms to existing curatorship and guardianship, and introduced voluntary guardianship. Replacing the traditional system based on incompetence and quasi-incompetence, the new system is based on respecting the autonomy of a principal as far as possible, in common with developments in other countries. After setting the context of the reforms, this paper gives with an account of the reform process and then outlines the structure of the new provisions and reports on their early operation. In concluding, some observations are made on the application of the adult guardianship to consent to medical treatment on the part of patients with dementia, an issue that remains unresolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]