According to WHO estimates, more than 700,000 people die each year due to suicide and suicides performed with a bladed weapon account for approximately 1.6%-3% of all suicides. It is statistically more common to find injuries to the heart, lungs, and thoracic vessels in homicides, whereas in suicides there is a higher frequency of vascular injuries to the extremities of the limbs. Also in suicides, the presence of "hesitation marks," related to the attempts the victim makes before having the courage to kill himself, can often be found. In the case presented by the authors, these parameters are subverted: There was only one injury and it was the fatal one, it was located on the chest and reached the heart. But it was suicide. The circumstantial data, the psychological explanation, and the previous similar suicide attempt left no doubt about it. The man decided to commit suicide because he could no longer find meaning in his life after losing hope for a career as a pianist, having been diagnosed with a degenerative disease in his hands. The man hated himself and his existence: The future appeared extremely negative and the only escape was self-suppression. This case report makes an essential contribution to the already existing Literature as it shows a suicide that occurred in an unusual manner.
INTRODUCTION: "Human capital" is defined as an integration of innate skills and knowledge acquired by investing in the formation of an individual; it is a real "capital" that pays off in the long term. In the Italian legal system, a human being is recognised as a "person" from the moment of birth. This determines the acquisition of the personal rights of an individual. Necessarily, therefore, by law, a fetus does not own such rights; nevertheless, it has an innate "potential" to acquire such rights after birth. OBJECTIVE: In Italian jurisprudence, in general, the damage from a loss of a parental relationship is justified by the condition of existential emptiness caused in the family by the loss of a child. Compensation for this damage in the event of abortion due to third-party responsibility presents a non-uniform recognition in the judgements of the Italian courts, but in any case, it is almost always recognised with limitations since the emotional relationship with the lost individual is defined only in terms of "potential". Consequently, in this matter, at least two questions can be raised: (i) Is the economic estimate of abortion based on objective and standardised criteria, or is it heavily influenced by subjective evaluation? (ii) Is it possible to find standard criteria that may act as guidelines to quantify the loss of that human capital "in progress"? METHODOLOGY: The authors try to answer these questions by analysing the different approaches to this issue adopted at an international level. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, the authors propose homogeneous criteria to quantify the damage caused by abortion.
Restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic might have changed recreational habits. In this study, the results of toxicological tests for alcohol and drugs in blood were compared among drivers stopped at roadside checks in the periods before (1 January 2018 to 8 March 2020) and after the lockdown measures (9 March 2020 to 31 December 2021). A total of 123 (20.7%) subjects had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit for driving of 0.5 g/l, 21 (3.9%) subjects tested positive for cocaine, and 29 (5.4%) subjects positive for cannabis. In the COVID-19 period, the mean blood alcohol level was significantly higher than in the previous period. Cannabis use, which was more frequent among younger subjects, was statistically associated with cocaine use. There has also been a quantitative increase in alcohol levels in the population with values above the legal limits, indicative of greater use of alcohol in the population predisposed to its intake.
Average global temperatures continue to trend upward, and this phenomenon is part of the more complex climate change taking place on our planet over the past century. Human health is directly affected by environmental conditions, not only because of communicable diseases that are clearly affected by climate, but also because of the relationship between rising temperatures and increased morbidity for psychiatric diseases. As global temperatures and the number of extreme days increase, so does the risk associated with all those acute illnesses related to these factors. For example, there is a correlation between out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and heat. Then, there are pathologies that recognize excessive heat as the main etiological agent. This is the case with so-called "heat stroke", a form of hyperthermia accompanied by a systemic inflammatory response, which causes multi-organ dysfunction and sometimes death. Starting with a case that came to their attention of a young man in good general health who died while working unloading fruit crates from a truck, the authors wanted to express some thoughts on the need to adapt the world of work, including work-specific hazards, in order to protect the worker exposed to this "new risk" and develop multidisciplinary adaptation strategies that incorporate climatology, indoor/building environments, energy use, regulatory perfection of work and human thermal comfort.
Communicable Diseases , Heat Stroke , Stroke , Male , Humans , Hot Temperature , Climate Change , Temperature
Informed consent is the manifestation of the will that a patient freely expresses toward a medical treatment. The physician is responsible for acquiring informed consent for both medical and nursing procedures. Informed consent represents a juridical-deontological tool that allows therapeutic choices to be shared with the user after having exhaustively explained the risks and benefits of the procedure itself. In fact, the physician has an obligation to provide the patient with clear and comprehensible information about the type of service, the methods of delivery, the benefits, the risks, even unforeseeable ones, and the complications. According to Italian legal guidelines, in cases of presumed health responsibility, the health professional accused of negligence will have to demonstrate that any complication that has arisen, although foreseeable, was not preventable. Through the analysis of a clinical case relating to the procedure of insertion of a bladder catheter performed by a nurse and a review of the literature, the authors explain the importance of the information that must be provided to the patient before carrying out any invasive procedure, even if not performed by the doctor. The authors describe the problem in the Italian context and propose a possible solution.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused an increasing number of corporate layoffs and downsizing, as well as causing many employees to be absent due to illness, with inevitable consequences on the health of active workers both from a physical point of view, due to the need to make up for staff and organizational shortages, and from a mental point of view, due to the inevitable consequences related to the uncertainty of the social context. This context has certainly caused an increase in work-related stress, which is the pathological outcome of a process that affects workers who are subjected to excessive (emotional-relational or high or low or inadequate activity) or improper work loads. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the main aspects of this issue, through the analysis proposed by two case reports, both of which occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, in which occupational stress emerged as an etiological agent in the determinism of death.
COVID-19 , Occupational Stress , Humans , Pandemics , Emotions
The term "euthanasia" refers to medical interventions that involve the direct administration of a lethal drug to the patient who requests it and meets certain requirements. Currently in Italy euthanasia constitutes a crime and falls within the hypotheses foreseen and punished by Article 579 (Murder of consenting person) or by article 580 (Instigation or aid to suicide) of the penal code. On the contrary, medically assisted suicide in some cases and the suspension of treatment constitute an inviolable right pursuant to art. Thirty two of the Constitution and Law 219/2017. Thanks to the sentence 242/2019 of the Constitutional Court, in Italy it is instead possible to request medically assisted suicide, that is, the indirect help of a doctor to die. There are four conditions required: whoever requests it must be fully capable of understanding and willing, must have an irreversible pathology that is the bearer of severe physical or mental disease, and must survive thanks to life-saving treatments. The Italian referendum "Free until the end" aims to introduce legal euthanasia through the partial repeal of art. 579 c.p. which punishes the murder of the consenting party. The authors analyze the reasons for the referendum in the light of the Italian and European scenario, analyzing the first Italian case of assisted suicide immediately after the referendum which inevitably becomes a starting point for ethical and medico-legal reflection on the issue. On 02.15.2022 the Italian Constitutional Court declared the Referendum on Legal Euthanasia inadmissible.
