Medical Decision-Making Among Elderly People in Long Term Care1

Abstract

Informed consent information on high and low risk medical procedures was presented to elderly people in a long term care facility in standard, simplified or storybook formats. Comprehension was significantly better for the simplified and storybook formats. Ratings of decision-making ability approximated the comprehension test results. Performance on comprehension tests deteriorated significantly more after 1 week for the standard format group on high risk procedures.