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Understanding a Patient’s Wishes to Die

University of Illinois at Chicago, slabott{at}psych.uic.edu

This article presents the case of a critically ill woman whose decisional capacity was impaired by delirium. She indicated that she wanted to die, although it was not clear if she wanted life support withdrawn or was passively wishing for death. Family members were quite upset and attempted to terminate the evaluation. The patient slowly recovered physically and returned to her cognitive baseline. The author discusses this case with a focus on decisional capacity, delirium, and family and staff relationships.

Key Words: decisional capacity • advance directives • delirium

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