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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Attitudes of patients with mild dementia and their carers towards disclosure of the diagnosis | | Author(s) | Gill Pinner, Walter Pierre Bouman |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 15, no 3, September 2003 |
| Pages | pp 279-288 |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Communication ; Diagnosis ; Attitude ; Informal care ; Social surveys ; Nottingham. |
| Annotation | 50 patients with mild dementia and their carers from a memory clinic in Nottingham were interviewed separately by an old-age psychiatrist on whether they wished to be told of diagnoses of cancer and dementia. An overwhelming majority of patients with mild dementia wished to be informed of their diagnosis (92%); even more (98%) of the same patient sample reported wanting disclosure of a hypothetical diagnosis of cancer. A higher proportion (98%) of carers would wish to be told if they were to develop either dementia or cancer. All patients and carers would like access to treatment for dementia; and 88% of patients and 86% of carers would make use of a predictive test of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Before receiving a diagnosis of mild dementia, only 28% of patients had insight that they might have dementia. Only 26% of carers did not want the doctor to disclose the diagnosis of dementia to the patient. After 1 year, 6% of the original sample had developed a depressive illness requiring antidepressant treatment, and no major incidents had occurred following disclosure of diagnosis. The study adds support to the weight of evidence that disclosure of diagnosis of dementia does not cause depression or any irreversible harm to the patient. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-040330202 A |
| Classmark | EA: U: LK7: DP: P6: 3F: 8NTF |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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