Ethical Issues in Dementia Care

Julian C. Hughes is a consultant in Old Age Psychiatry at North Tyneside General Hospital and an Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Institute for Ageing and Health at the University of Newcastle, UK. He is currently the Chair of the Philosophy Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He also held a short-term Fellowship in 2003 from the Wellcome Trust to consider quality of life in dementia.Clive Baldwin is Senior Lecturer at Bradford Dementia Group, University of Bradford, UK. He is a member of the Christian Council on Aging Dementia Group and maintains his interest in the voluntary sector through fundraising and consultancy work. Both authors were involved in research at Ethox (University of Oxford) into ethical issues for family carers of people with dementia.

• Acknowledgements. Preface. 1. Making moral decisions: from consequences, duties and principles to conscience. 2. Being true: relationships, empathic understanding and communication. 3. Concerned to treat. 4. Keeping them safe. 5. It's the quality that counts, but how do we decide? 6. Making decisions in practice. References. Index.

The authors of this worthy book state that the aim is "to help carers of people with dementia...non-family, formal carers" (p.9). They take guidance from researh (Alzheimer's society) with family carers and I have no doubt that this book would be of comfort to these such carers too... Anyone invloved with a person woth dementia becomes more expert in ethical issues.