Neurology podcast on dementia ethics
I really enjoyed this interview with Dr. Jeff Ratliff for the Neurology journal podcast regarding our recent AAN Ethics, Law and Humanities Committee position statement about ethical issues in dementia. We got to talk about a broad range of topics even in a brief interview, such as problems that come up from the language we use about dementia, the difficult issue of truth-telling about a diagnosis that family members may lead to emotional harms, decisions about nursing home placement, and issues raised by new treatments like aducanumab. For the latter, while our position statement was formulated and reviewed by the different neurological societies prior to aducanumab’s approval, there are some broad issues (including capacity assessment, awareness of financial strains in dementia, and the exacerbation of racial and ethnic disparities) that this new drug illustrates.