A total of 60 young adults responded to vignettes presenting moral dilemmas experienced in caregiving interactions with a family member with dementia. Four types of reasons for deceiving (or not deceiving) a family member with dementia emerged: care reasons (improving the welfare of the person with dementia), justice reasons (universal principles), care-for-others reasons (protecting the welfare of others), and relationship reasons (maintaining the relationship). Care reasons and care-for-others reasons positively predicted moral decisions to lie, whereas justice reasons and relationship reasons negatively predicted these decisions. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the motives underlying deception in dementia relationships.
Alm, A.K., Hellzen, O. and Norbergh, K.G. (2014) Experiences of family relationships when a family member has dementia, Open Journal of Nursing, 4: 520–7. doi: 10.4236/ojn.2014.47055
Batson, C.D. (2011) Altruism in Humans, New York: Oxford University Press.
Beauchamp, T.L. and Childress, J.F. (2013) Principles of Biomedical Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press.
Behuniak, S.M. (2010) Toward a political model of dementia: power as compassionate care, Journal of Aging Studies, 24(4): 231–40. doi: 10.1016/j.jaging.2010.05.003
Bilgel, M., An, Y., Lang, A., Prince, J., Ferrucci, L., Jedynak, B. and Resnick, S.M. (2014) Trajectories of Alzheimer disease‐related cognitive measures in a longitudinal sample, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 10(6): 735–42.
Blum, L. (1988) Gilligan and Kohlberg: implications for moral theory, Ethics, 98(3): 472–91. doi: 10.1086/292966
Blum, N.S. (1994) Deceptive practices in managing a family member with Alzheimer’s disease, Symbolic Interaction, 17(1): 21–36. doi: 10.1525/si.1994.17.1.21
Botes, A. (2000) A comparison between the ethics of justice and the ethics of care, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 32(5): 1071–5. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2648.2000.01576.x
Brehm, J.W. and Miron, A.M. (2006) Can the simultaneous experience of opposing emotions really occur?, Motivation and Emotion, 30(1): 13–30. doi: 10.1007/s11031-006-9007-z
Casey, D., Lynch, U., Murphy, K., Cooney, A., Gannon, M., Houghton, C., Hunter, A., Jordan, F., Smyth, S., Felzman, H. and Meskell, P. (2020) “Telling a good or white lie”: the views of people living with dementia and their carers, Dementia, 19(8): 2582–600. doi: 10.1177/1471301219831525
Celdrán, M., Triadó, C. and Villar, F. (2011) My grandparent has dementia: how adolescents perceive their relationship with grandparents with a cognitive impairment, Journal of Applied Gerontology, 30(3): 332–52.
Day, A.M., James, I.A., Meyer, T.D. and Lee, D.R. (2011) Do people with dementia find lies and deception in dementia care acceptable?, Aging & Mental Health, 15(7): 822–9.
Dresser, R. (2021) A tangled web: deception in everyday dementia care, Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 49(2): 257–62.
Edwards, S.D. (1996) Nursing Ethics: A Principled Based Approach, London: Macmillan Press.
Elvish, R., James, I. and Milne, D. (2010) Lying in dementia care: an example of a culture that deceives in people’s best interests, Aging & Mental Health, 14(3): 255–62.
Gilligan, C. (1982) In a Different Voice. Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gilligan, C. (1995) Moral orientation and moral development [1987], in V. Held (ed) Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics, New York: Westview Press, pp 31–46.
Gilligan, C. and Attanucci, J. (1988) Two moral orientations: gender differences and similarities, Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 34(3): 223–37.
Greenfield, B.H. and Jensen, G.M. (2010) Understanding the lived experiences of patients: application of a phenomenological approach to ethics, Physical Therapy, 90(8): 1185–97. doi: 10.2522/ptj.20090348
Hasselkus, B.R. (1997) Everyday ethics in dementia day care: narratives of crossing the line, The Gerontologist, 37(5): 640–9. doi: 10.1093/geront/37.5.640
Hertogh, C.M., The, B.A., Miesen, B.M. and Eefsting, J.A. (2004) Truth telling and truthfulness in the care for patients with advanced dementia: an ethnographic study in Dutch nursing homes, Social Science & Medicine, 59(8): 1685–93.
Higgs, R. (1985) On telling patients the truth, in M. Lockwood (ed) Moral Dilemmas in Modern Medicine, New York: Oxford University Press.
Hughes, J.C. (2021) Truthfulness and the person living with dementia: embedded intentions, speech acts and conforming to the reality, Bioethics, 35(9): 842–9.
Hughes, J.C. and Baldwin, C. (2006) Ethical Issues in Dementia Care: Making Difficult Decisions, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Hughes, J.C., Hope, T., Reader, S. and Rice, D. (2002) Dementia and ethics: the view of informal carers, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 95(5): 242–62. doi: 10.1177/014107680209500507
Jackson, J. (1991) Telling the truth, Journal of Medical Ethics, 17(1): 5–9. doi: 10.1136/jme.17.1.5
James, I.A., Wood‐Mitchell, A.J., Waterworth, A.M., Mackenzie, L.E. and Cunningham, J. (2006) Lying to people with dementia: developing ethical guidelines for care settings, International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry: A Journal of the Psychiatry of Late Life and Allied Sciences, 21(8): 800–1.
Jenkins, N., Bloor, M., Fischer, J., Berney, L. and Neale, J. (2010) Putting it in context: the use of vignettes in qualitative interviewing, Qualitative Research, 10(2): 175–98. doi: 10.1177/1468794109356737
Jett, K., Tappen, R.M. and Rosselli, M. (2005) Imposed versus involved: different strategies to effect driving cessation in cognitively impaired older adults, Geriatric Nursing, 26(2): 111–16. doi: 10.1016/j.gerinurse.2005.01.004
Juujärvi, S. (2005) Care and justice in real-life moral reasoning, Journal of Adult Development, 12: 199–210. doi: 10.1007/s10804-005-7088-7
Kant, I. (1996 [1785]) Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, the metaphysics of morals, and on a supposed right to lie from philanthropy, in A.W. Wood and M.J. Gregor (eds) Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kitwood, T. (1997) Dementia Reconsidered: The Person comes First, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Kohlberg, L. (1973) The claim to moral adequacy of a highest stage of moral judgment, The Journal of Philosophy, 70: 630–46. doi: 10.2307/2025030
Lyons, K.S., Zarit, S.Z., Sayer, A.G. and Whitlatch, K.J. (2002) Caregiving as a dyadic process: perspectives from caregiver and receiver, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 57(3): 195–204.
Lyons, N.P. (1983) Two perspectives: on self, relationships, and morality, Harvard Educational Review, 53(2): 125–45. doi: 10.17763/haer.53.2.h08w5m7v217j84t1
Miron, A.M., Thompson, A.E., Ebert, A.R. and McFadden, S.H. (2019a) Weaving social reality around the grandparent/great-grandparent with dementia: a model of verbal and non-verbal dementia interactions, Dementia, 18(6): 2244–60.
Miron, A.M., Thompson, A.E., McFadden, S.H. and Ebert, A. (2019b) Young adults’ concerns and coping strategies related to their interactions with their grandparents and great-grandparents with dementia, Dementia, 18(3): 1025–41.
Miron, A.M., Ebert, A.R. and Hodel, A.E. (2020) The morality of lying to my grandparent with dementia, Dementia, 19(7): 2251–66. doi: 10.1177/1471301218819550
Podgorica, N., Flatscher-Thöni, M., Deufert, D., Siebert, U. and Ganner, M. (2021) A systematic review of ethical and legal issues in elder care, Nursing Ethics, 28(6): 895–910.
Roberts, C. (1999) The management of wandering in older people with dementia, Journal of Clinical Nursing, 8: 322–3. doi: 10.1046/j.1365-2702.1999.0225a.x
Russell, G. (2018) Dementia diagnosis and white lies: a necessary evil for carers of dementia patients?, International Journal of Care and Caring, 2(1): 133–7. doi: 10.1332/239788217X15090949539964
Schermer, M. (2007) Nothing but the truth? On truth and deception in dementia care, Bioethics, 21(1): 13–22. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00519.x
Smebye, K.L., Kirkevold, M. and Engedal, K. (2016) Ethical dilemmas concerning autonomy when persons with dementia wish to live at home: a qualitative, hermeneutic study, BMC Health Services Research, 16: 21.
Tronto, J.C. (1998) An ethic of care, Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging, 22(3): 15–20.
Tuckett, A.G. (2012) The experience of lying in dementia care: a qualitative study, Nursing Ethics, 19(1): 7–20. doi: 10.1177/0969733011412104
Wood-Mitchell, A., Waterworth, A., Stephenson, M. and James, I. (2006) Lying to people with dementia: sparking the debate, Journal of Dementia Care, 14(6): 30–1.
May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 2057 | 1557 | 102 |
Full Text Views | 246 | 14 | 1 |
PDF Downloads | 131 | 10 | 0 |
Institutional librarians can find more information about free trials here