Ethical considerations in chronic musculoskeletal disease

Chronic diseases compromise the life of the sufferer, encumber their families, and exert intractable burdens on the health-care system. With the aging of the population, such conditions have become the primary determinants of morbidity and mortality and the leading cause of disability in our society. Despite the serious challenges they impose, the ethical discourse engendered by them has lagged behind that of acute care medicine. Of particular relevance are the challenges to individual autonomy, as the dilemmas arising in the chronic care setting have not only medical but personal and societal dimensions, may require the input of multiple participants, and resolve over longer periods of time. As such, the conventional model of autonomy is often inadequate to address problems in the chronic care setting. This paper deals with this dilemma through an examination of a clinical scenario. A framework for the exploration of ethical problems in the chronic care setting is thus presented.