The ethics around testing for Alzheimer’s
ListenGuests: Dena Davis and Jason Karlawish
If you could have a blood test to find out your chances of developing Alzheimer’s, would you? And if that test revealed that you would be diagnosed with the disease in just a few years, what would you do? Would you consider ending your life before you becoming incapable of making decisions about the care you receive? While there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s, scientists are getting closer to identifying the markers and warning signs of the disease. But such testing raises interesting ethical issues for patients and their families, and health providers and researchers according to our guests, bioethicists DENA DAVIS and JASON KARLAWISH. Davis is a professor of bioethics at Lehigh University and Karlawish is a professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania
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