Now Mental Health Patients Can Specify Their Care Before Hallucinations and Voices Overwhelm Them

As the pendulum has swung from institutionalization to outpatient care, psychiatric advance directives (PADs) also offer a middle path by allowing patients to designate family members to speak for them when they’re too sick to do so themselves.

But some doctors and hospitals are wary that the documents could tie their hands and discourage treatment they consider warranted. Some worry the directives won’t be updated to reflect medical advances. Others question whether people with serious psychiatric conditions are ever capable of lucidly completing such directives.

Still, early research and experience suggest that PADs, authorized by law in 27 states and possible in others as part of conventional medical advance directives, could help some of the millions of people with serious mental illness cope better and guide doctors treating them.

The full article from the New York Times can be viewed at this link.