What They Don’t Say: Non-verbal Patient Behavior and its Role in Medical Decision Making
Files
Publication Date
10-17-2017
Error loading player: No playable sources found
Keywords
ethics, decision-making capacity, advance care planning
Disciplines
Bioethics and Medical Ethics
Abstract
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.
Specialty/Research Institute
Biomedical Ethics
Comments
Curtis R. Holzgang, M.D., MACP Visiting Scholar