Too Many Choices Confuse Patients With Dementia

Creator(s)

Ronald C. HamdyFollow
J. V. Lewis, East Tennessee State University
Amber Kinser, East Tennessee State UniversityFollow
Audrey Depelteau, East Tennessee State UniversityFollow
Rebecca Copeland, East Tennessee State UniversityFollow
Tracey Kendall-Wilson, East Tennessee State University
Kathleen Whalen, East Tennessee State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2017

Description

Choices are often difficult to make by patients with Alzheimer Dementia. They often become acutely confused when faced with too many options because they are not able to retain in their working memory enough information about the various individual choices available. In this case study, we describe how an essentially simple benign task (choosing a dress to wear) can rapidly escalate and result in a catastrophic outcome. We examine what went wrong in the patient/caregiver interaction and how that potentially catastrophic situation could have been avoided or defused.

Copyright Statement

© The Author(s) 2018. This document was originally published in Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Citation Information

Hamdy, Ronald C.; Lewis, J. V.; Kinser, Amber; Depelteau, Audrey; Copeland, Rebecca; Kendall-Wilson, Tracey; and Whalen, Kathleen. 2017. Too Many Choices Confuse Patients With Dementia. Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine. Vol.3 https://doi.org/10.1177/2333721417720585 ISSN: 2333-7214