ipl-logo

Ethical Dilemma Case Study Alzheimer's

1705 Words7 Pages

This case study is about Mr. John, who is in his end stage of Alzheimer’s disease and is unable to swallow due to a recent stroke. His wife proposes insertion of the feeding tube but Mr. John pulls his tube out twice. The wife wants to continue the feeding and insists of putting restraints on Mr. John. This issue requires an ethical consideration in order to decide if the intervention should be continued with the restraints or to listen to the patient who doesn’t want the intervention. Ethically correct decisions can be very distressing especially related to life-sustaining treatments and does not always please everyone involved in that decision. To explore this issue ethically, I would use a decision-making model by Michael McDonald which consists of various steps.
Collect information and identify the problem
Since Mr. John is unable to swallow, it would be dangerous for him to be orally …show more content…

John’s perspective, he pulls out the feeding tube and seems to be uncooperative. The reasoning behind his approach is unknown but there may be some alternative interpretations. Since, Mr. John is suffering from an end stage Alzheimer’s, his cognitive impairment may compromise his decision-making regarding his health (Yeo & Moorhouse, 2010). He may be unaware of the consequences of the action of removing his feeding tube due to his disease progression. The other alternative for his reasoning can be that he was tired of the suffering and that he was aware that the feeding tube wouldn’t decrease his suffering but just prolong his burden of life. It is also possible that Mr. Khan’s belief’s and values about artificial hydration and nutrition through a tube hinders his dignity and he would rather want to die peacefully (Preston & Kelly, 2006). No one really knows what Mr. John would want for sure. In such cases, where the prior wishes of the patients are unknown, a family member can make a decision that will reveal patient’s best interests (Yeo & Moorhouse,

Show More
Related

  • Physician Assisted Suicide Ethical Issues

    1290 Words  | 6 Pages

    There are populations such as the poor, elderly and minorities that can be taking advantage of and not informed of other options for their life. Vicki D. Lachman writes an article entitled; Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking: An Ethical Alternative to Physician- Assisted Suicide. The author talks about the need to assist dying patients by taking a deeper look into palliative care and providing the patient with the necessities and information about withholding treatment that can save their lives (Lachman, 2015, p. 56). The author of the article expressed her concerns that nurses can play a role in providing patients with the knowledge about voluntary stopping of eating and drinking due to the fact that nurses spend more time communicating with the patients and getting to know them in an intimate fashion (Lachman, 2015, p. 59).

    Read More

  • Case Study Of Cruzan V. Missouri Department Of Health

    1766 Words  | 8 Pages

    These opponents believed that removing this feeding tube would be “morally wrong.” They saw this as opening the door to killing people who are of “no use.” The author added few people take advantage of the options the case made available to them: only 10 percent have living wills to reflect their wishes regarding end-of-life care, should they become incapacitated

    Read More

  • Explain Why Did Goldman Say That Decisions Regarding People's Own Futures

    1059 Words  | 5 Pages

    Wanglie Would have desired, there was no reason to doubt her family on that point, but whether the continuation of ventilator support and gastrostomy feeding were among the reasonable medical alternatives that should have been available to Mrs. Wanglie or her surrogate decision maker, whoever that might be. The question, really, was whether the provision of this kind of treatment in this kind of case was outside the limits of medicine and, thus, beyond her power of choice. Mrs. Wanglie’s healthcare providers should have argued that medical practice simply did not include providing ventilator and gastrostomy feeding under circumstances of this case, and that not surrogate decision maker should be able to choose this option”

    Read More

  • Mr Bray Burn Case Study

    503 Words  | 3 Pages

    Due to the severity of his injuries, and experience discomfort as he tries to eat, or he might not be conscious to eat, and this could affect his nutrient needs and lead to malnutrition and other problems if his health care team don’t try other means of feeding, like Enteral Nutrition and Parenteral Nutrition (DeBrune and Pinna

    Read More

  • What Are Some Ethical Issues In Long Term Care

    601 Words  | 3 Pages

    Reading this article for the elderly care, I feel that ethical issues commonly occur anywhere in the treatment of older patients. I had a clinical experience both in an acute-care hospital and in a long-term care facility. Before working in a long-term facility, I was not aware of how many ethical principles were violated in the treatment of older patients as a daily routine as stated in the article. In reality, there are many situations in which older patients don’t completely exhibit their autonomy because they are vulnerable physically and emotionally and dependent on others. Therefore, they become more conscious of caregivers or healthcare professionals.

    Read More

  • Autonomy And Wellbeing When Patient With Dementia Essay

    1566 Words  | 7 Pages

    Nurses in Complex Continuing Care Encountering Ethical Dilemmas of Autonomy and Wellbeing When Patient with Dementia Wants to go Home Bhakti Amin Student # A0622083 Professor S. Cairns NURS 2047 23 March 2018 Introduction Dementia continues to grow as a condition diagnosed among elderly females, researchers have hypothesized that this is due to longer female life expectancy (Podcasy & Epperson, 2016). Allowing a client with dementia to stay in their own can have several benefits such as joy, comfort, socially connected, maintain identity, and have meaning in life; however, in many cases, clients with dementia require complex continuous care (CCC) to support their health and wellness needs and the needs of their family (Lilly

    Read More

  • Ethical Dilemmas In Health And Social Care

    359 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the UK, policies for health, safety and security are not only give positive impact it also creates dilemma in relation to implement. Dilemma refers to a situation in which a difficult choice has to he made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones. There are different types of dilemma in safety. This includes * Resource implications

    Read More

  • Bed Number Ten By Sue Baier And Mary Schomaker

    1960 Words  | 8 Pages

    Introduction In Bed Number Ten by Sue Baier and Mary Schomaker, the theme was about how showing compassion can help someone through a difficult time. The story was in the perspective of Sue Baier, who was a patient diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome. She wrote, with incredible detail, about the interactions she had with the healthcare professionals that took care of her. Each member had different interactions when they took care of Mrs. Baier, both positive and negative interactions.

    Read More

  • A Death Of One's Own Movie Analysis

    642 Words  | 3 Pages

    The ethical principle of autonomy provides for respect for the patient’s autonomy to make decisions and choices concerning their life and death. Respecting the patient’s autonomy goes against the principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. There also exists the issue of religious beliefs the patient, family, or the caretaker holds, with which the caretaker has to grapple. The caretaker thus faces issues of fidelity to patient welfare by not abandoning the patient or their family, compassionate provision of pain relief methods, and the moral precept to neither hasten death nor prolong life.

    Read More

  • Atul Gawande Whose Body Is It Anyway Analysis

    590 Words  | 3 Pages

    Atul Gawande in his article “Whose body is it, anyway?” introduced couple of cases, which discussed a controversial topic, doctors dealing with patients and making important medical decisions. These are difficult decisions in which people might have life or death choices. Who should make the important decisions, patients or doctors? Patients don’t usually know what is better for their health and while making their decisions, they might ignore or don’t know the possible side effects and consequences of these decisions.

    Read More

  • Why Is Physician Assisted Suicide Morally Wrong

    886 Words  | 4 Pages

    Some suffer more than others, people experience death differently due to different causes of death. Moreover, in health care, physicians experience difficult situations that require ethical decisions. Patients at the end of life process do not always have the capability to make decisions for themselves. The burden to make medical decisions is left to families and physician’s. Some cases are so intense, because patients voluntarily request assisted suicide.

    Read More

  • Ethical Issues In Nursing Home Essay

    503 Words  | 3 Pages

    The ethical issues that are faced in nursing homes stem from a conflict of the institution's policy, staffing concerns regarding safety matters, and the general desires and preferences of the residents. When moving into a nursing, there is a loss of privacy as many residents share bedrooms, bathrooms, and common areas. The resident’s independence and decision-making ability over matters such as what to eat, wear, and their entertainment can all be controlled by the nursing facility, and this leads to a loss of autonomy. There are also concerns when the decision-making capacity of a resident conflicts with the general well-being of the nursing home populations. Moral issues that come into play when the resident has demonstrated a lack of competent decision-making practices is that who’s input regarding the resident's well-being has their best interest.

    Read More

  • The Four Main Ethical Theory Of Beauchamp And Childress

    1167 Words  | 5 Pages

    Relevant legal and ethical considerations, focusing on the 4 main ethical principles and how each of these apply to this case using research evidence. Focusing on the ethical theory of Beauchamp and Childress, it is considered one of the most fundamental elements for beginning a discussion in the Not for resuscitation (NFR) debate. (Fornari, 2015). The four main ethical principles, autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence and justice hold the grounding block for issues of this nature. End of life care is an imperative characteristic of acute stroke nursing, as stroke mortality rates remain high, regardless of enhancements in the health care industry.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Ethical Dilemmas In Nursing

    865 Words  | 4 Pages

    Military Nurse’s Dilemma Chi Tiet University of Michigan - Flint Nurses are a group of professionals who faces a variety of ethical dilemmas while working. Therefore, these dilemmas cannot only impact on their personalities but also affect their patients. However, ethical dilemmas are argumentative and difficult to deal with, so there is no “right” or “wrong” answer for them. In a military nurse’s dilemma, a military RN is ordered to force feeding a terrorist prisoner while he is undergoing interrogation, and the prisoner is on a hunger strike protesting. The nurse is torn, but fearing of reprisal if orders are disobeyed, so the nurse is appalled at the over-riding a patient’s wish by force feeding him agains his wish.

    Read More

  • Ethics In Health Care Essay

    1610 Words  | 7 Pages

    The practice of health care includes many scenarios that have to do with making adequate decisions when it comes to a patient’s life, and the way they are treated. Having an ethical code in all health care organizations is very important, because it helps health care workers with reaching a suited and ethical decision when it comes to the patient. In health care, patient will always be put first, and their autonomy will always be respected. Nevertheless, when there is a situation where a patient might be in harm, or might be making their condition worse because of the decisions they made. Health care workers will always be there to

    Read More

More about Ethical Dilemma Case Study Alzheimer's

Open Document