Clinical and ethical challenges of palliative sedation therapy. The need for clear guidance and professional competencies.

Source

Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, NRW Junior Research Group "Medical Ethics at the End of Life: Norm and Empiricism", Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.

Abstract

Palliative sedation therapy (PST) has become a frequent practice in end-of-life care and advocated in the literature as a less problematic alternative to practices of physician-assisted dying, such as ending patients' lives on request or assisted suicide . However, in clinical practice, patients, healthcare professionals and other parties involved in decisions about PST are facing numerous clinical and ethical challenges. This perspective aims to analyse important challenges associated with professional decision-making about PST and to explore the recommendations of guidelines, which have been published in recent years.

TimAllenMDJD

Wednesday, October 30, 2013