title: [Experiences and ethical questions of family members of patients with dementia].
abstract: There are many decisions that family members of sufferers of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia are forced to take to guarantee the well-being and quality of life of their loved ones and, of course, themselves. A little more than 12 years ago in Medina del Campo, Valladolid, there arose the need to inform and, what's more, to support a large number of people whose family members had been diagnosed with a devastating type of dementia that was practically unknown. The illness presented these families with a growing number of difficult-to-resolve ethical dilemmas. This was the genesis of the Asociación de Familiares de enfermos de Alzheimer (Association of Family Members of Sufferers of Alzheimer's), where baffled family members searching for responsible answers came looking for help to their practical problems that they felt unable to solve using only common sense. What follows are the details of several real situations, the most delicate of which, as the Association psychologist, I shared with the affected families. The cases below involved a dilemma when applying the basic principles of bioethics: non-maleficence, beneficence and respect for the autonomy of the diseased.
authors.affiliation: Asociación de Familiares de Enfermos de Alzheimer de Medina del Campo y Comarca, Avda. Lope de Vega n. 33, Medina del Campo, Valladolid. maycuglez9@hotmail.com
authors.forename: M Cruz
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: González Paniagua
mesh_terms: D003704:Dementia; D004989:Ethics; D005190:Family; D006801:Humans