TY - JOUR
T1 - Relational autonomy and the clinical relationship in dementia care
AU - Klein, Eran
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - The clinical relationship (or doctor-patient relationship) has been underexplored in dementia care. This is in part due to the way that the clinical relationship has been articulated and understood in bioethics. Robert Veatch’s social contract model is representative of a standard view of the clinical relationship in bioethics. But dementia presents formidable challenges to the standard clinical relationship, including ambiguity about when the clinical relationship begins, how it weathers changes in narrative identity of patients with dementia, and how the intimate involvement of family fits alongside a paradigmatically dyadic relationship. Drawing on work in recent feminist theory, a critique is offered of the standard clinical relationship in bioethics as underwritten by an individualistic conception of autonomy. An alternative view of the clinical relationship in dementia, one that embraces a relational account of autonomy, is put forward.
AB - The clinical relationship (or doctor-patient relationship) has been underexplored in dementia care. This is in part due to the way that the clinical relationship has been articulated and understood in bioethics. Robert Veatch’s social contract model is representative of a standard view of the clinical relationship in bioethics. But dementia presents formidable challenges to the standard clinical relationship, including ambiguity about when the clinical relationship begins, how it weathers changes in narrative identity of patients with dementia, and how the intimate involvement of family fits alongside a paradigmatically dyadic relationship. Drawing on work in recent feminist theory, a critique is offered of the standard clinical relationship in bioethics as underwritten by an individualistic conception of autonomy. An alternative view of the clinical relationship in dementia, one that embraces a relational account of autonomy, is put forward.
KW - Autonomy
KW - Caregivers
KW - Dementia
KW - Doctor-patient relationship
KW - Family
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U2 - 10.1007/s11017-022-09580-5
DO - 10.1007/s11017-022-09580-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 35581441
AN - SCOPUS:85130273621
SN - 1386-7415
VL - 43
SP - 277
EP - 288
JO - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
JF - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
IS - 4
ER -