Health care and human service professionals often experience anxiety about potential adverse legal repercussions for actions taken or not taken in the course of caring for patients or clients.

In this volume, professionally distinguished and diverse authors discuss both the real and perceived legal liability context within which health and human service delivery to older persons takes place. The benefits and costs of litigious, legislative, and regulatory interventions on the quality of care and the quality of life for recipients of geriatric services is evaluated. Most important, chapters present suggestions for ways to effectively reduce or manage legal risks and anxieties while improving patient care. This volume fills a gap in the literature by providing careful and accurate analysis of legal issues rarely translated into practical and useful advice for health care and human service professionals.

As a critical examination of the pervasive tension existing between defensive medicine and good, ethical patient care, this book investigates the impact of legalities on medical treatment. Physicians today are apprehensive about the threat of malpractice suits. Kapp explores the extent to which this fear is justified. He examines where physicians get their ideas about what the law forbids and requires, how physicians' perceptions of the law and medicine affect medical care, and whether these behavioral manifestations benefit or hurt a physician's ability to practice ethically. Kapp then suggests ways medical professionals can resolve tension caused by conflicting demands and encourage more ethical care.

As the American population ages, health care for the elderly grows in importance. This bibliography overviews the most significant books and journal articles on the ethical issues related to health care for older Americans. The topics covered are of interest to practitioners and the general public alike, as well as to professionals from a wide range of fields. The author has provided more than five hundred bibliographic citations. These entries are arranged in eleven topical chapters to facilitate use by the reader. Each citation is accompanied by an annotation that concisely summarizes and assesses the contents of the work. The volume begins with an informative introductory essay on the ethical issues pertinent to health care for older adults. The chapters that follow are devoted to broad topics, such as financial considerations, treatment for the terminally ill, and decision-making by and for the impaired elderly. The work concludes with author and subject indexes that add to its utility. Researchers and practitioners from all fields will find this work an indispensable guide to the wealth of literature on the ethical aspects of health care for older Americans.

Kapp's annotated list of 617 titles, in 13 sections, focuses on sources that discuss the `identifiable body of law concerned with personal and institutional relationships, implicated by the delivery of health care for the elderly.' This work is meant for health professionals, attorneys, researchers, educators, and advanced students. The succinct yet informative annotations cover references from January 1, 1980, to August 31, 1987. . . . Highly recommended. Choice Legal questions relating to health care for the elderly have grown increasingly numerous and complex. While these issues have been dealt with extensively by researchers and professional specialists, the literature has grown so vast in the past decade that it is difficult to keep abreast of legal developments. This bibliography is designed to assist practicing health, human services, and legal professionals as well as researchers, teachers, and students in identifying and evaluating information sources that will provide essential guidance on the legal implications of health care for the elderly. Organized in thirteen subject sections, the volume contains more than six-hundred annotated references dealing with institutional regulations and standards of care, disability determinations, decisionmaking for critically ill patients, involuntary commitment, advocacy services for the older health care consumer, and many other topics. Citations consist of books, book chapters, journal articles, and reports published from 1980 onwards. Entries are cross-referenced systematically, and author and subject indexes are provided. This important new reference will be an invaluable working tool for professionals and students who need to understand and deal with some of the most difficult issues in the field of modern health care.