title: [Patients' wills: legal aspects].
abstract: A unilateral written declaration in which someone expresses his or her will to die under certain circumstances is legally valid and binding on third persons who may have knowledge of this declaration, provided that the declaration contains only prohibitions and no orders to positive action, provided it has been written by an adult person not under the influence of error, fear or mental incapacity, provided also that the declaration is not in contradiction with the expression of actual desire to live, such as expression of hunger, thirst or fear of death, and provided finally that the declaration is not in contradiction with what has to be assumed as the future desire of the patient to live once he awakes from his present unconsciousness. Other instructions in the declaration, such as the desire to receive medicaments in lethal quantities, deprivation of artificial nutrition once the person no longer recognizes his relatives, or refusing of reanimation if future dependence on other people's help can be foreseen, are legally invalid.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Brückner
mesh_terms: D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005066:Euthanasia, Passive; D006801:Humans; D008020:Life Support Care / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D012151:Resuscitation; D012297:Right to Die / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D013557:Switzerland
vernacular_title: Patientenverfügungen: Rechtliche Aspekte.