Compulsory Psychiatric Admission in a Patient With Metastatic Breast Cancer: From Palliative Care to Assisted Suicide

Frontiers in Psychiatry
Felix NoppesFlorian Riese

Abstract

The provision of palliative care in psychiatry and the use of coercion in palliative care are underexplored areas. We report the case of a 65-year-old woman with cerebral metastatic breast cancer who was compulsorily admitted from a specialized palliative care ward to a psychiatric inpatient ward in Zurich, Switzerland. While in specialized inpatient palliative care, the patient had resisted palliative care but was found to lack decision-making capacity for her treatment due to disordered thought process and paranoid delusions. Under our care, which involved coercive treatment in the form of concealed administration of an antipsychotic, the patient's psychiatric symptoms improved. She regained decision-making capacity, was granted discharge from hospital, and ended her life by assisted suicide on the day of discharge.

References

Jan 29, 2011·Palliative Medicine·Emmanuelle BélangerDanielle Groleau
Jun 26, 2013·Current Psychiatry Reports·Nathan Fairman, Scott A Irwin
Dec 18, 2015·Swiss Medical Weekly·UNKNOWN Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences
Oct 22, 2016·Bioethics·Samia A Hurst, Alex Mauron
Dec 1, 2018·Swiss Medical Weekly· Swiss Academy Of Medical Sciences
Jan 9, 2019·Frontiers in Psychiatry·Roland M Jones, Alexander I F Simpson
May 28, 2019·International Journal of Law and Psychiatry·Monica VerhofstadtKenneth Chambaere

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