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Dementia in Our Midst: The Moral Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Stephen G. Post
Stephen G. Post
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy in the Center for Biomedical Ethics, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio
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Extract

This article focuses on the elderly patient with a progressive and irreversible dementia, most often of the Alzheimer type. However dementia, the decline in mental function from a previous state, can occur in all ages. For example, if Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the dementia of the elderly, increasingly AIDS is the dementia of many who are relatively young. I will not present the major ethical issues relating to dementia care following the progression of disease from the mild to the severe stages, for I have done this elsewhere. Among the issues included are: presymptomatic testing, both psychological and genetic; responsible diag- nostic disclosure and use of support groups; restrictions on driving and other activities; preemptive assisted suicide; advance directives for research and treatment; quality of life in relation to the use of life-extending technologies; and euthanasia.

Type
Special Section: Elder Ethics
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Spring 1995 , pp. 142 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

Notes

1. Post, SG. Alzheimer's disease: Ethics and the progression of dementia. Clinics in Geriatric Medicine 1994;10:379–94.Google Scholar

2. Hauerwas, S. Suffering Presence: Theological Reflections on Medicine, the Church, and the Mentally Handicapped. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986:162.Google Scholar

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