Competence Assessment in Dementia [Paperback]

The increasing proportion of demented elderly in populations, debates over patients rights and autonomy, and the growing body of knowledge on dementia has inspired the European Dementia Consensus Network to regard competence assessment in dementia as an important topic of debate. This book contains a summarised consensus as well as chapters on state-of-art neuropsychological functions and how they relate to competence, and chapters discussing ethical, legal perspectives.

1 Dementia and related disorders affect the suffer- minimal standards of care for people with dementia , ers ability to perform activities of daily living and the improvement of access to diagnosis and treat- 2 3 to make appropriate decisions about various issues ment , ethical issues related to research in dementia , relevant to their life. While there is no disagreement the problems related to severe dementia, stigma and about these facts there is little clarity and even less social exclusion of people with dementia, assessment consensus about the ways in which competence to of outcome of treatment of dementia and the asse- make decisions should be assessed in daily practice ment of competence of people with dementia. The  nor is there agreement about the levels of compe- work to develop consensus on the latter subject lead, tence at which it is in the best interest of the people inter alia to the production of this volume. with dementia to have a guardian and receive legal In its work the EDCON Steering committee - protection against abuse and other mistreatment. lects areas on which it will concentrate and desig- In daily clinical practice there is a large heterogene- nates a coordinator for the work on each of those.Introduction: Why has competency assessment become more important? Development of the Consensus statement EDCON Consensus: Assessment of Competence Neuropsychological assessment (Pasquale Calabrese) Brain structures involved in dementia (Matthias Brand and HanlCž