Dementia and Aging: Ethics, Values, and Policy Choices

Several million Americans are afflicted with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementing disorder. For families, professional caregivers, policy makers, and the patients themselves, the challenges are immense and the economic costs are staggering. In "Dementia and Aging" Binstock, Post, and Whitehouse bring together experts in gerontology, geriatrics, psychiatry, neurology, nursing, ethics, philosophy, public policy, and law to examine the ethical, moral, and policy controversies surrounding dementia.

Table of Contents:
Ethics, policies, and dementia; how dementia is experiences; societal images of the demented elderly; human dignity and dementia; treatment decisionmaking and the demented self; whose life is it?; should we euthanize the demented elderly?; dementia and the boundaries of euthanasia; dementia and appropriate care; a framework for achieving appropriate care; the future of public policy.

About the Author :
Robert H. Binstock, Ph.D., is a professor of Aging, Health, and Society at Case Western Reserve University. Stephen G. Post is the director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. He is the author of The Moral Challenge of Alzheimer Disease: Ethical Issues from Diagnosis to Dying.

Review :
Dementia and Aging will become a standard introduction to what Lewis Thomas called 'the disease of the century' . . . Gerontologists will benefit from reading [this] collection [dealing] with a multifaceted problem from diverse perspectives. —Gerontologist The diversity of thought and opinions represented in this book is its major strength. the contributing authors are..acknowledged experts in their respective fields; the chapters are well written and edited. Each section provides insights into an important aspect of Alzheimer disease.. Opposing views on euthanasia and alternative proposals for health care reform are fairly presented. the reader is left with a better understanding of the complex and evolving nature of decision-making required in the care of patients with Alzheimer disease. —Annals of Internal Medicine