ABSTRACT
Aging is a public health priority that is becoming increasingly important in both developed and less developed nations, with individual health care providers and law-makers each facing difficult ethical and policy dilemmas. The complex issues physicians deal with include informed consent and patient decision-making capacity, use of advance care planning and decision-making by family and medical staff, and withdrawing and withholding life-sustaining interventions. Broader questions include: has aging been over medicalized? Is it ethical for older patients to receive less medical care than younger ones, through unspoken practice or formal rationing? Is there inevitable conflict between the generations over scarce medical resources? How should physician, patient and family confront end-of-life decisions? How have different nations responded to increasing numbers of the elderly? Have social values changed as to family responsibility and individual autonomy? This volume brings together the most significant published essays in the field.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|1 pages
Healthcare in an Aging Society
part 1|1 pages
The Demographic Context
part 2|1 pages
Medical and Cultural Models
part 3|1 pages
Ethical Choices for an Aging Society
part 2|1 pages
Decision-making for the Older Patient
part 4|1 pages
Consent and Full Disclosure
part 5|1 pages
Competence
part 6|1 pages
Deciding for the Incompetent
part 7|1 pages
Decision-making at the End of Life
chapter 21|12 pages
Stewardship of the Aged: Meeting the Ethical Challenge of Ageism
part 8|1 pages
Advance Directives
part 9|1 pages
Palliative Care
part 10|1 pages
Deliberate Death
part 3|1 pages
Are the Needs of the Elderly Met?
part 11|1 pages
Clinical Outcomes
part 12|1 pages
Health System
part 13|1 pages
Long-term Care
part 4|1 pages
Distributive Justice
part 14|1 pages
Issues of Ethnicity
part 15|1 pages
Family Responsibility
part 16|1 pages
Setting Limits
part 17|1 pages
Age Discrimination
part 18|1 pages
Age-based Rationing