Palliative care psychiatry

Psychiatrists working in a palliative care setting see a wide variety of diagnoses in the setting of advanced disease and bereavement. This chapter describes the key features of palliative care and some of the specific presentations of psychiatric disorders in this setting. These include: withdrawal; requests for physician assisted suicide or euthanasia; assessment of mental capacity; and patients with denial about their disease and its poor prognosis. The remainder of the chapter describes the problem of depression in the context of advanced disease. This includes a discussion about definitions and diagnosis; the potential adverse consequences of depression; the assessment and management of depression and its treatment.