PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - S L Ekman
AU  - A Norberg
TI  - The autonomy of demented patients: interviews with caregivers.
AID  - 10.1136/jme.14.4.184
DP  - 1988 Dec 01
TA  - Journal of Medical Ethics
PG  - 184--187
VI  - 14
IP  - 4
4099  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/14/4/184.short
4100  - http://jme.bmj.com/content/14/4/184.full
SO  - J Med Ethics1988 Dec 01; 14
AB  - Tape-recorded semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 nursing aides and enrolled nurses in the geriatric clinic in Umeå, Sweden. The interviews focused on the difference between the care of demented and non-demented patients and ethical conflicts in dementia care. The results indicate that caregivers have problems in providing the demented patients with opportunities to act autonomously in everyday matters on the ward, mainly due to the difficulty of understanding what the patients wish and the fact that their wishes, when understood, often seem irrational. Measures to provide the demented patients with more opportunities to act autonomously in everyday matters are suggested.