Ethical Issues in Dementia Care

Julian C. Hughes is a consultant in Old Age Psychiatry at North Tyneside General Hospital and an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Ageing and Health at the University of Newcastle, UK. He is currently the Chair of the Philosophy Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also held a short-term Fellowship in 2003 from the Wellcome Trust to consider quality of life in dementia.Clive Baldwin is Senior Lecturer at Bradford Dementia Group, University of Bradford, UK. He is a member of the Christian Council on Aging Dementia Group and maintains his interest in the voluntary sector through fundraising and consultancy work. Both authors were involved in research at Ethox (University of Oxford) into ethical issues for family carers of people with dementia.

There are always difficult day-to-day decisions to be faced when caring for a person with dementia ? from knowing how to deal with wandering to end of life decisions. Many of these decisions are underpinned by value judgments about right and wrong and reflect a particular view of dementia. This book considers these ethical decisions in the context of relationships, treatment, safety and quality of life, offering practical guidance and advice. It draws on the experiences of family carers as well as on existing research and emphasizes the importance of empathy and the need to acknowledge different perspectives in order to reach the best decision for the person with dementia. In particular the authors discuss the way that decision makers are themselves changed by the decisions they make, and the impact of this on the decision-making process. This book should be read by all those who work caring for people with dementia.

Acknowledgements. Preface. 1. Making moral decisions: from consequences, duties and principles to conscience. 2. Being true: relationships, empathic understanding and communication. 3. Concerned to treat. 4. Keeping them safe. 5. It's the quality that counts, but how do we decide? 6. Making decisions in practice. References. Index.