Should capacity assessments be performed routinely prior to discussing advance care planning with older people?

Unlabelled: ABSTRACTBackground:People with dementia receive worse end of life care compared to those with cancer. Barriers to undertaking advanced care planning (ACP) in people with dementia include the uncertainty about their capacity to engage in such discussions. The primary aim of this study was to compare the Advance Care Planning-Capacity Assessment Vignette tool (ACP-CAV) with a semi-structured interview adapted from the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool-Treatment (MacCAT-T).

'Trust me, I'm a doctor': a qualitative study of the role of paternalism and older people in decision-making when they have lost their capacity.

Objective: The objective of this study was to explore whether older people want their doctors to make treatment decisions on their behalf when they no longer have capacity to do so, and their reasons for these preferences.

Method: A convenience sample of older people from two retirement villages were interviewed and asked to respond to a hypothetical vignette. Their responses were analysed using qualitative thematic methodology.