Deciding for others

Milbank Q. 1986;64(Suppl. 2):17-94.

Abstract

Decision making for incompetent elderly people is an increasingly serious issue for American society. The decision-making processes we choose will reflect choices among a number of ethical principles--those specifying the purpose of substituted judgment, those guiding the surrogate decision maker, and those used in choosing the surrogate--and depends as well on the way we construe the concept of decision-making competence.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Advance Directives*
  • Aged*
  • Chronic Disease
  • Cognition
  • Communication
  • Comprehension
  • Decision Making*
  • Dementia* / psychology*
  • Disclosure
  • Ethical Analysis
  • Ethics Committees
  • Ethics Committees, Clinical
  • Ethics*
  • Ethics, Professional
  • Euthanasia, Passive
  • Evaluation Studies as Topic*
  • Family
  • Freedom*
  • Hospitals
  • Human Rights
  • Humans
  • Informed Consent*
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Judicial Role
  • Jurisprudence
  • Life Support Care
  • Mental Competency*
  • Mental Disorders
  • Mental Processes
  • Mental Status Schedule
  • Paternalism*
  • Patient Care*
  • Patient Compliance
  • Patients*
  • Persistent Vegetative State
  • Personal Autonomy*
  • Physicians
  • Prevalence
  • Prognosis
  • Public Policy
  • Quality of Life
  • Reference Standards*
  • Risk
  • Risk Assessment
  • Social Values*
  • Statistics as Topic
  • Third-Party Consent*
  • Treatment Refusal*
  • Withholding Treatment