AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To assess the feasibility, acceptability and potential effectiveness of Dignity Therapy to improve the quality of life and reduce psychological and spiritual distress in older people with early stage dementia. BACKGROUND Dementia is a syndrome with several causes that leads to a progressive decline in multiple areas of functioning. The maintenance of dignity and enhancemen...

This article focuses on Danish patients' experience of autonomy and its interplay with dignity and integrity in their meeting with health professionals. The aim is to chart the meanings and implications of autonomy for persons whose illness places them in a vulnerable life situation. The interplay between autonomy and personal dignity in the meeting with health care staff are central concepts i...

BACKGROUND Maintaining dignity, the quality of being worthy of esteem or respect, is considered as a goal of palliative care. The aim of this study was to analyse the construct of personal dignity and to assess the content validity of the Patient Dignity Inventory (PDI) in people with an advance directive in the Netherlands. METHODS Data were collected within the framework of an advance direc...

BACKGROUND Dignity Therapy (DT), an intervention for people facing serious illness, focuses on dignity conservation tasks such as settling relationships, sharing words of love, and preparing a legacy document for loved ones. Research on DT began more than a decade ago and has been conducted in 7 countries, but a systematic review of DT research has not been published. METHODS Using a PubMed s...

The institutionalization of patients' rights is a recent phenomenon in Kenya. In 2006, Kenya's Ministry of Health initiated policy measures to improve patient satisfaction through a charter of patients' rights. The aim was to change the longstanding public perception that nurses in public hospitals routinely ignored patients' right to respectful treatment. This paper focuses on linguistic indic...

In this bioethics’ paper, I oppose the arguments justifying lying and deceiving persons with dementia for their good or out of compassion. The goals achieved by deception should be in other ways. However, although some extraordinary cases, a medical professional caregiver can depart from veracity rule, cannot lead to invalidation truth-telling, being conditio sine qua non respect patient`s dign...