Rights and Duties

Abstract

"Many industrialized countries face ethical issues concerning terminally ill patients focused on such topics as rights, duties, and obligations of patients, families, health professionals, and society at large. Japan is no exception and some urgency surrounds these issues given recent demographics. The elderly now constitute 15.7% of the population and by 2025, this figure will reach 27.4%. Furthermore, the government predicts that this trend will continue for at least another century (1).

This paper reports responses to selected open - ended questions taken from a larger study (2). Specifically, these questions sought to ascertain the major ethical problems in Japan with terminally ill patients. Corollary questions focused on the reasons and remedies for the major ethical dilemmas. Based on previous findings, the researchers anticipated that information disclosure to the terminally ill and the lack of agreed upon ethical guidelines appropriate to Japan would be mentioned so they included questions on these topics as well. "