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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Capacity to consent to treatment
— empirical comparison of three instruments in older adults with and without dementia | | Author(s) | Jennifer Moye, Michele J Karel, Armin R Azar |
| Journal title | The Gerontologist, vol 44, no 2, April 2004 |
| Pages | pp 166-175 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Medical care ; Cognitive processes ; Evaluation ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The instruments designed to assess medical decision-making capacity used in this study were: the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCATT-T); the Hopemont Competence Assessment Interview (HCAI); and the Capacity to Consent to Treatment Interview (CCTI). 88 older people with mild to moderate dementia were compared with 88 matched controls on four indices of legal competency to consent to medical treatment as assessed by the three instruments. Mean performance of those with dementia on a legal standard of understanding treatment information was impaired relative to the control group on all instruments, and it was also impaired for an appreciation standard on two instruments. However, in categorical ratings, most of those with dementia were within the normal range on all decisional capacities. Legal standards were operationalised differently across the three instruments for the capacities of appreciation and reasoning. Thus, although memory impairment may limit demonstration of understanding of diagnostic and treatment information, most people with mild dementia can participate in medical decision-making as defined by legal standards. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-040726205 A |
| Classmark | EA: LK: DA: 4C: 7T |
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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