The competence to vote in patients with dementia

Introduction. The competence is a legal concept that implies the capacity to make autonomous decisions. The patients with dementia have progressively diminished their cognitive functions, with greater functional limitation according to their deterioration. Aim. To evaluate the capacity to make the decision to vote in a group of ambulatory and institutionalized patients with dementia. Patients and methods. By using the reference of the test of capacity to vote (Appelbaum) and the Mini-Mental State Examination to measure the cognitive state, a cross-sectional study of 37 patients with Alzheimer's dementia was made. Results. It was observed that components of competence of understanding the nature and effect to vote stay intact. The results of the appreciation and reasoning were more different. Conclusion. More studies are necessary to evaluate the capacity to vote in patients with moderate dementia. The understanding of the vote has significant relation with cognitive impairment.