Conclusions: The recent trend has been to rely on proxy decision making for incompetent patients. Support for proxy decision making has failed to acknowledge the growing body of ethical and empirical research suggesting that ...

In June 1983, a task force appointed by the Minnesota Board on Aging issued a set of guidelines designed to improve the process of making decisions about when to provide "supportive care," i.e., "care and treatment to ...

The use of the Quality Adjusted Life-Year (QALY) as a measure of the benefit obtained from health care expenditure has been attacked on the ground that it gives a lower value to preserving the lives of people with a ...