Ethics and dementia: mapping the literature by bibliometric analysis

Area of Science:

• Bibliometric analysis of ethical issues in dementia literature.
• Focus on keyword trends from 1980-2000.

Background:

• Dementia ethics research has evolved significantly over two decades.
• Understanding the landscape of ethical considerations is crucial for care and policy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a bibliometric analysis of keywords in dementia ethics literature.
• To identify dominant and emerging ethical themes and research methodologies.

Main Methods:

• Keyword extraction from 14 bibliographic databases (titles, abstracts, keywords).
• Clustering keywords into 19 categories for frequency and co-occurrence analysis.
• Visual mapping of category relationships over time using a 'night sky' metaphor.

Main Results:

• Four consistent themes emerged: professional care, end-of-life issues, decision-making, and treatment.
• Some issues fluctuated (e.g., quality of life), while others responded to external events (e.g., feeding issues).
• Research predominantly relied on surveys of predefined issues, with limited qualitative studies on family or professional perspectives.

Conclusions:

• The literature is dominated by four key ethical categories.
• Emerging ethical interests and externally triggered topics were identified.
• The study highlights a reliance on survey-based research and a gap in in-depth qualitative studies.