Patients Who Lack Capacity and Lack Surrogates: Can They Enroll in Hospice?

Involuntary hospitalization of medical patients who lack decisional capacity: an unresolved issue.

Received August 23, 2005; revised January 18, 2006; accepted January 27, 2006. From the Dept. of Psychiatry, Univ. of Massachusetts Medical School. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Byatt, Dept. of Psychiatry, Univ. of Massachusetts Medical School, 55 Lake Ave North, Worcester, MA 01655. e-mail: [email protected] Copyright 2006 The Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine Psychosomatic...

A Consensus-Based Approach To Providing Palliative Care to Patients Who Lack Decision-Making Capacity

Making palliative care decisions for a patient who lacks decision-making capacity presents several challenges. Other people, such as family and caregivers, must choose for the patient. The goals and values of these decision makers may conflict with those of each other and with those of the patient, who now lacks the capacity to participate in the decision. This paper presents a case study of a ...

Can lack of communication kill?

The lack of effect of market structure on hospice use.

OBJECTIVE To describe the relative importance of health care market structure and county-level demographics in determining rates of hospice use. DATA SOURCES Medicare claims data for a cohort of elderly patients newly diagnosed with lung cancer, colon cancer, stroke, or heart attack in 1993, followed for up to five years, and linked to Census and Area Resource File data. STUDY DESIGN Variat...

Making decisions for people with dementia who lack capacity: qualitative study of family carers in UK

OBJECTIVE To identify common difficult decisions made by family carers on behalf of people with dementia, and facilitators of and barriers to such decisions, in order to produce information for family carers about overcoming barriers. DESIGN Qualitative study to delineate decision areas through focus groups and complexity of decision making in individual interviews. SETTING Community settin...