Adults Are Not Big Children: Examining Surrogate Consent to Research Using Adults with Dementia

Extract

Few early debates in bioethics invigorated the field to the same extent as the one concerning whether or not young children could be used in nontherapeutic research. Though some of the issues in the debate were never fully settled, a consensus emerged, reflected in the Common Rule—that surrogates could consent to use children in such research, although once the level of risk rises above minimal, additional stipulations are required. Nontherapeutic research on cognitively impaired elderly people raises equally complex ethical issues, but there has been a dearth of debate in the literature about whether such research is ethically permissible. Instead, there have been many published recommendations regarding the circumstances under which such research can occur.