Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Difficult choices in treating and feeding the debilitated elderly
- 3 The American debate about artificial nutrition and hydration
- 4 Reflections on Horan and Boyle
- 5 The Living Will: the ethical framework of a recent Report
- 6 Some reflections on euthanasia in The Netherlands
- 7 Is there a policy for the elderly needing long-term care?
- 8 Is it possible to provide good quality long-term care without unfair discrimination?
- 9 The prospects for long-term care: current policy and realistic alternatives
- 10 What is required for good quality in long-term care of the elderly?
- 11 Should age make a difference in health care entitlement?
- 12 Economic devices and ethical pitfalls: quality of life, the distribution of resources and the needs of the elderly
- 13 The Aged: non-persons, human dignity and justice
- 14 Economics, justice and the value of life: concluding remarks
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Difficult choices in treating and feeding the debilitated elderly
- 3 The American debate about artificial nutrition and hydration
- 4 Reflections on Horan and Boyle
- 5 The Living Will: the ethical framework of a recent Report
- 6 Some reflections on euthanasia in The Netherlands
- 7 Is there a policy for the elderly needing long-term care?
- 8 Is it possible to provide good quality long-term care without unfair discrimination?
- 9 The prospects for long-term care: current policy and realistic alternatives
- 10 What is required for good quality in long-term care of the elderly?
- 11 Should age make a difference in health care entitlement?
- 12 Economic devices and ethical pitfalls: quality of life, the distribution of resources and the needs of the elderly
- 13 The Aged: non-persons, human dignity and justice
- 14 Economics, justice and the value of life: concluding remarks
- Index
Summary
All the chapters in the present volume are based on papers which were originally delivered at two related Conferences planned by the editor for the 1990 Meeting of the European Association of Centres of Medical Ethics. Most have been revised in the light of the responses to them at that Meeting.
Both Conferences were concerned with certain of the major ethical issues which arise in relation to the care of the dependent elderly, namely those old people whose condition is such that they require continuing care. It was decided to consider those issues principally as they present themselves in the context of UK Geriatric Medicine, though attention was also devoted to certain influential trends in the USA and The Netherlands.
The speciality of Geriatric Medicine has developed remarkably in the UK since the Second World War and is characterised, in the persons of so many of its practitioners, by a high degree of expertise and by admirable commitment to the health care of elderly people. These features of clinical practice of themselves are cause for hope in face of the increasing need for that expertise and commitment coming from the growing population of the dependent elderly. But realism demands that we should recognise the threats posed to the position of the dependent elderly in our society both by trends in social policy and by ideological trends.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Dependent Elderly , pp. 1 - 10Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
- 1
- Cited by