Edited by Robert H. Binstock, Stephen G. Post, and Peter J. Whitehouse. 184 pp. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. $18.95. ISBN 0-8018-4545-9.
Dementia poses an enormous ethical problem to U.S. society andto other societies and cultures in the world. The "old old"are the fastest-growing segment of our population, and dementiais alarmingly prevalent in this group. The most common dementiasare inevitably fatal after there has been a decade or more ofprogressive intellectual and physical deterioration. The greatmajority of patients with dementia spend their final years innursing homes, bed-bound, incontinent, unable to recognize theirfamily members, and unaware even of their own identities. Theissues such patients raise are extreme versions of problemswe now face in . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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