Palliative sedation: autonomy, suffering, and euthanasia.
Journal
Current opinion in supportive and palliative care
ISSN: 1751-4266
Titre abrégé: Curr Opin Support Palliat Care
Pays: United States
ID NLM: 101297402
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
01 09 2023
01 09 2023
Historique:
medline:
31
7
2023
pubmed:
10
7
2023
entrez:
10
7
2023
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
This contemporary and novel review of palliative sedation explores some of the distinctive ethical problems associated with that intervention. It is timely in light of recent reviews of palliative care guidelines on the topic and given the current public debates around the related but distinct practice of euthanasia. The main themes discussed are patient autonomy, the nature of suffering and how to alleviate it, and the relationship between palliative sedation and euthanasia. First, palliative sedation poses a significant problem for patient autonomy, both in terms of securing informed consent and in terms of the ongoing effect on individual well-being. Second, as an intervention to alleviate suffering, it is appropriate only in limited cases and counterproductive in others, for example, where an individual values their ongoing psychological or social agency more than the relief of pain or negative experience. Third, people's ethical views about palliative sedation are often coloured by their understanding of the legal and moral status of assisted dying and euthanasia; this is unhelpful and occludes the interesting and urgent ethical questions raised by palliative sedation as a distinct end-of-life intervention.
Identifiants
pubmed: 37428181
doi: 10.1097/SPC.0000000000000665
pii: 01263393-202309000-00014
doi:
Types de publication
Review
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
214-218Informations de copyright
Copyright © 2023 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.
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