Should Tactile Defensiveness Exclude a Life-Sustaining Intervention in an Adolescent With Autism?

Ian D Wolfe; Don Brunnquell; Rena Sorensen; Armand H Matheny Antommaria

doi:10.1542/peds.2021-054469

Should Tactile Defensiveness Exclude a Life-Sustaining Intervention in an Adolescent With Autism?

Pediatrics. 2022 Mar 1;149(3):e2021054469. doi: 10.1542/peds.2021-054469.

Authors

Ian D Wolfe¹, Don Brunnquell², Rena Sorensen³, Armand H Matheny Antommaria^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Clinical Ethics Department, Children's Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
² Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
³ Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio.
⁴ Ethics Center and.
⁵ Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio.

PMID: 35229117
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2021-054469

Abstract

This Ethics Rounds considers the benefits and burdens of a potentially temporary tracheostomy in an adolescent with autism and severe tactile defensiveness.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Autistic Disorder* / therapy
Humans
Touch