Abstract

Medical prescription in psychiatry for the elderly is often a complex process for doctors. It involves more than writing a script for medications. It also concerns all of the medical actions for the person who is ill or for the implementation of assistance and support to their family or professional carers. In psychogeriatrics, issuing prescriptions sometimes runs into problems relating to comprehension and compliance by the person who is ill, thereby raising the issue of patient consent. Prescription is geared to restoration of a condition close to normality according to the perspective of the doctor, actor of doing, and according to the request of the patient, actor of enduring. This formal distinction of the roles underlies a community of prescription. There is also the acceptance of the human vulnerability for the two actors, who assume sharing a same humanity. It reunites the doctor and the patient in a community of destiny, a condition necessary to appreciate the meaning to the suffering of the patient and to orient the axiological sorting of the therapeutics. In this article, we examine the processes that come into play for doctors in the construction of psychiatric medical prescription for elderly individuals.