What They Don’t Say: Non-verbal Patient Behavior and its Role in Medical Decision Making

What They Don’t Say: Non-verbal Patient Behavior and its Role in Medical Decision Making

Authors

Ralf Jox

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Publication Date

10-17-2017

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Keywords

ethics, decision-making capacity, advance care planning

Disciplines

Bioethics and Medical Ethics

Description

Patients who lack decision-making capacity may display non-verbal behavior such as refusing eating or nursing care that can complicate the medical decision making process by the treating teams and surrogate decision makers. Such behavior is not only difficult to interpret, but also difficult to reconcile with standard ethical and legal criteria or directions contained in advance care planning. This presentation summarizes existing empirical evidence and discusses possible ethical approaches to this problem.

Department

Biomedical Ethics

Comments

Curtis R. Holzgang, M.D., MACP Visiting Scholar

What They Don’t Say: Non-verbal Patient Behavior and its Role in Medical Decision Making

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