Surrogate consent for dementia research: a national survey of older Americans.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Research in novel therapies for Alzheimer disease (AD) relies on persons with AD as research subjects. Because AD impairs decisional capacity, informed consent often must come from surrogates, usually close family members. But policies for surrogate consent for research remain unsettled after decades of debate.

Methods

We designed a survey module for a random subsample (n = 1,515) of the 2006 wave of the Health and Retirement Study, a biennial survey of a nationally representative sample of Americans aged 51 and older. The participants answered questions regarding one of four randomly assigned surrogate-based research (SBR) scenarios: lumbar puncture study, drug randomized control study, vaccine study, and gene transfer study. Each participant answered three quest

SUBMITTER: Kim SY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2663398 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature