Therapeutic privilege: between the ethics of lying and the practice of truth.

The 'right to the truth' involves disclosing all the pertinent facts to a patient so that an informed decision can be made. However, this concept of a 'right to the truth' entails certain ambiguities, especially since it is difficult to apply the concept in medical practice based mainly on current evidence-based data that are probabilistic in nature. Furthermore, in some situations, the doctor is confronted with a moral dilemma, caught between the necessity to inform the patient (principle of autonomy) and the desire to ensure the patient's well-being by minimising suffering (principle of beneficence).

Assessment of visual function in institutionalized elderly patients.

Objective: To describe the visual function and ocular health of frail elderly patients institutionalized in a tertiary care university-affiliated geriatric hospital.

Design: Retrospective file review.

Setting: A university-affiliated geriatric hospital.