Florida Department of Health – Ed and Ethel Moore Alzheimer’s Disease
Factors Influencing Family Caregivers: Medical Decision-Making for Patients with Advanced Alzheimer’s Disease
Advanced Alzheimer”s Disease (AD) is characterized by severe cognitive and functional impairment that necessitates family caregiver involvement in medical decision-making as patient surrogate decision-maker. Caregiver choices to seek, accept, or discontinue medical treatments greatly influence quality of life, utilization of health care services, and length of patient survival. Little is known, however, about how they come to these decisions. This study will examine factors that influence family caregivers” medical decision-making in the context of advanced AD. The naturalistic decision-making model that focuses on the role of personal and situational factors in making decisions, will provide a conceptual framework for the study.