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A byproduct of the aging of the population has been a dramatic rise in the rate of Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia. A conservative estimate is that there are currently 4 million people in the United States with dementia.1 In the final stage of dementia, patients are typically unable to walk or to feed themselves, they are incontinent and aphasic, and they have lost the capacity to have relationships with other people. Family members or other surrogate decision makers must make difficult and often painful decisions about limiting care.2 Should they authorize surgery, hospitalization, intravenous medication? Is a . . .
Muriel R. Gillick (2000) studied this question.