Typically anorexia nervosa is diagnosed as a condition of teenage girls where the rates of mortality and morbidity are very high and recovery rates very low. This chapter discusses the condition as experienced in Australia by older women who have either lived with anorexia during adolescence and as young women or who have been diagnosed later in life. The discussion traverses issues of consent to treatment or its refusal, capacity to provide consent, and the application of human right protections arising from various human rights instruments.
The National Ethics Council has intensively discussed the issues involved in dealing responsibly with dying. It has perused a large volume of material, obtained expert opinions, consulted with doctors and other medical specialists, and held meetings in Augsburg and Münster at which it exposed itself to public debate. The outcome is enshrined in the Opinion now presented. Self-determination and care at the end of life continues the examination of the themes addressed in the Opinion The advance directive published in June 2005. The present analysis, in conjunction with the clarification of terminology here proposed, may facilitate interpretation of the recommendations set out in that Opinion.
Advance decisions and proxy decision-making in medical treatment and research 13 November 2007 June 2007 This guidance covers the law and ethical issues involved in competent individuals making advance decisions about their later medical treatment and proxy decisions about medical treatment made by other people on behalf of adults who lack mental capacity. When they are mentally competent, patients decide for themselves whether or not to accept the medical treatments recommended by health professionals. This guidance is about what happens when that mental ability to make a valid decision is lost.
This site explains how the law now allows people to make decisions to refuse treatments including those that sustain life. Many people want to achieve a natural and dignified death, this is one way to help achieve it. This is a free and non-profit NHS website. We suggest people enter the site using the relevent menu section (above). Many people benefit from looking at both sections.
Seriously ill children under 16 may be forced to take life-saving medical treatment against their wishes - but only after their maturity and viewpoint have been carefully considered, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled.
Doctors were forced to allow a young woman to die as she had made a "living will" requesting no medical help if she attempted suicide. They would have risked breaking the law by treating Kerrie Wooltorton, 26, of Norwich, an inquest heard. Miss Wooltorton wrote her living will in September 2007, asking for no intervention if she tried to take her own life.
Doctors will be allowed forcibly to sedate the 55-year-old woman in her home and take her to hospital for surgery. She could be forced to remain on a ward afterwards. The case has sparked an intense ethical and legal debate. Experts questioned whether lawyers and doctors should be able to override the wishes of patients and whether force was ever justified in providing medical care.
A cancer patient who has a phobia of hospitals should be forced to undergo a life-saving operation if necessary, a High Court judge has ruled. Sir Nicholas Wall, sitting at the Court of Protection, ruled doctors could forcibly sedate the 55-year-old woman - referred to as PS. PS lacked the capacity to make decisions about her health, he said. Doctors at her NHS Foundation trust had argued PS would die if her ovaries and fallopian tubes were not removed. Evidence presented to Sir Nicholas, head of the High Court Family Division, said PS was diagnosed with uterine cancer last year.
A high court judge in England has ordered that doctors can force a woman without the capacity to decide for herself to have lifesaving treatment for aplastic anaemia. Mrs Justice Hogg made the ruling in the Court of Protection after an unnamed NHS trust applied to the court with the backing of the Official Solicitor, who looks after the interests of those lacking capacity. The judge said the 30 year old woman, named only as SB, who is detained under the Mental Health Act, has a serious psychiatric disorder and lacks the capacity to decide for herself whether or not to have the potentially lifesaving treatment.