Ethical issues of pharmacotherapy and clinical trials in patients with dementia

Abstract

Dementia raises many ethical issues associated with stages of dementia such as the appearance of preclinical and asymptomatic patients who are, however, at risk of dementia. Thus, physicians come across ethical issues about preventive measures, disclosure of risks and protection from stigmatization and discrimination. Despite efforts to prevent dementia, it is also necessary to solve ethical issues related to the study of ways to alleviate the symptoms of clinical dementia, with the need for additional protection of patients with dementia when prescribing pharmacotherapy. One of the possible ways to solve these issues should be to use an integrated approach to conducting clinical trials and analyzing the ethical, legal and social consequences of dementia, for which it is necessary to include the collection of ethics-related data in the design of the dementia study itself.