Definition of the problem: In the course of demographic change, people with a migration background are increasingly reaching an age at which the need for nursing care increases. In particular, dementia in advanced stages leads to a high need for care, which makes it difficult for relatives to provide the care exclusively. According to current studies, however, people with a migration background are usually cared for by family members at home and almost no outpatient assistance is used. The low utilization of outpatient and inpatient services is due to insufficient information and insufficient consideration of the nursing care situation and needs of this heterogeneous population group. The understanding of dementia is also heterogeneous in different cultures. For example, dementia is often not accepted as a disease, but the symptoms are interpreted as “normal” signs of aging, which means that medical care is not sought until late. In everyday medical and nursing care, these factors often lead to ethical conflicts between family caregivers and professionals, but also within the family context. Arguments: Starting from results of an empirical study based on two case descriptions, ethical conflicts in the care of dementia patients of Turkish origin in Germany are presented. The ethical challenges to medical and nursing care in the inpatient and outpatient setting of dementia sufferers with a migration background will be discussed. Conclusion: The question of the extent to which these conflicts are “culturalized” at different levels and the implications for medical ethics will be investigated. © 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland, ein Teil von Springer Nature.

Dementia Migration culture Intercultural

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