Cognitive Fluctuations as a Challenge for the Assessment of Decision-Making Capacity in Patients With Dementia
- 18 June 2014
- journal article
- review article
- Published by SAGE Publications in American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias®
- Vol. 30 (4), 360-363
- https://doi.org/10.1177/1533317514539377
Abstract
Decision-making capacity (DMC) is an indispensable prerequisite for medical treatment choices, including consent to treatment, treatment discontinuation, and refusal of treatment. In patients with dementia, DMC is often affected. A particular challenge in assessing DMC are cognitive fluctuations that may lead to a fluctuation in DMC as well. Cognitive fluctuations are a diagnostic core feature of dementia with Lewy bodies and occur in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. In this article, these challenges are discussed and suggestions for assessing the DMC of patients with dementia with cognitive fluctuations are presented.This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Effect of cognitive fluctuation on neuropsychological performance in aging and dementiaNeurology, 2010
- Medical decision‐making capacity in cognitively impaired Parkinson's disease patients without dementiaMovement Disorders, 2008
- Participation in dementia research: rates and correlates of capacity to give informed consentJournal of Medical Ethics, 2008
- Cognitive predictors of medical decision-making capacity in traumatic brain injury.Rehabilitation Psychology, 2008
- Ethical questions in the treatment of subjects with dementia. Part I. Respecting autonomy: awareness, competence and behavioural disordersNeurological Sciences, 2007
- Higher cortical deficits influence attentional processing in dementia with Lewy bodies, relative to patients with dementia of the Alzheimer's type and controlsJournal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 2006
- Capacity and consentCurrent Opinion in Psychiatry, 2001
- Enhancing Informed Consent for Research and TreatmentNeuropsychopharmacology, 2001
- Delirium in dementiaInternational Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 1998
- Neuropsychological and psychiatric differences between Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease with dementia.Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 1996