Martina Schmidhuber

The Right to Health and the Post-2015 Health and Sustainable Development Goal Agenda Jonathan Mann’s 1997 Call for a Paradigm Shift Remains Imperative

The Emerging Fields Initiative (EFI) Conference, »The right to health – an empty promise?«, held 14–16 September 2015 in Berlin, Germany, occurred one week before the General Assembly gathered together at United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York to vote on the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) agenda. At that high-level General Assembly plenary meeting, the »UN Sustainable Development Summit« of 25– 27 September 2015, the UN member states collectively endorsed the General Assembly resolution, »Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development«.¹ This formative UN resolution on the post – 2015 SDG agenda will be the global community’s blueprint...

Advance Directives as Support of Autonomy for Persons with Dementia A Pilot Study among Persons with Dementia and Their Informal Caregivers

Background: Advance directives could be an important instrument to support a person’s will once he/she is not able to consent anymore – if composed competently. A survey was conducted to identify the level of knowledge concerning possibilities and limits of advance directives. Methods: The study was conducted as part of the Bavarian Dementia Survey (BayDem). Data were collected from January 2014 to December 2015 by structured face-to-face interviews. Study participants were persons with dementia and their informal caregivers (n = 74). Results: In total, 66% reported having written an advance directive. Concerning the participants’ knowledge about possibilities and limitations of advance directives, a lack of knowledge was noted about the possibility to revoke an advance directive. Furthermore, 70% of informal caregivers and 56% of persons with dementia were not aware of the possibility to include dementia-specific terms in the advance directive. Conclusion: It is necessary to optimize structures for public information and education concerning the topic of advance directives for persons with dementia.