Ethical Issues

Abstract

Health and social care professionals meet ethical dilemmas constantly. Being able to make clinical decisions based on sound ethical principles is central to compassionate care and should underpin all the topics covered in this book. The decline in health, and wellbeing that often follows a fragility fracture threatens wellbeing, especially when we have limited capacity or and diminished power over their own lives and decisions. These challenges make a person vulnerable because they may be unable to take care of themselves and/or to protect themselves from loss of dignity, harm, or exploitation. The aim of this chapter is to provide practitioners with information about ethical principles and dilemmas in caring for patients with fragility fractures so that they can provide ethically sensitive care, including at the end of life.