One of the challenging areas in clinical practice today is wanting to honor patient wishes but not being clear on the competency or capacity level a patient with dementia or behavioral health issues. In this episode we explore different challenging situations that ask: a) What is the best assessment of capacity? b) What level of risk should be supported? c) How might health care professionals approach these situations at a deeper human level? Our guests, who are national experts in this area and will offer insight and practical consideration and approaches to the questions list above and others.

Our guests in this episode include:

Sherri Boggs, Quality, Patient Safety & Education Manager, Our Lady of Peace Hospital

Dr. Stephen Post, international speaker, best selling author and the Director for the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics at Stony Brook University

Dr. Paul S. Appelbaum, New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Department of Psychiatry

Dr. Ali Abbas Asghar-Ali, Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center

Sessions are monitored on a monthly basis by CME office and content confirmed to be evidence based and without bias. Secondly, the CME Program Director and CME Coordinator reviewed and approved all material prior to the educational activity being approved to confirm that the educational activity was evidenced based. Peer reviewed journals and other literature are used, as applicable during discussions.

References for Further Study:

Kontos, N., Freudenreich, O., & Querques, J. (2013). Beyond capacity: identifying ethical dilemmas underlying capacity evaluation requests. Psychosomatics, 54(2), 103-110

Calcedo-Barba, A., Fructuoso, A., Raga, J. M., Paz, S., MSd, C., & Pons, E. V. (2020). Evidence on the capacity of severe mental disorder patients to make well-founded decisions about their healthcare: a meta-review (Doctoral dissertation, Universidad Anáhuac, México)

Kelly, B. D. (2017). The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015: what it is and why it matters. Irish Journal of Medical Science (1971-), 186(2), 351-356

Ganzini, Linda, Ladislav Volicer, William A. Nelson, Ellen Fox, and Arthur R. Derse. "Ten myths about decision-making capacity." Journal of the American Medical Directors Association 6, no. 3 (2005): S100-S104

Finch, J. (2019). Assessing mental capacity and making decisions. British Journal of Neuroscience Nursing, 15(4), 187-189