BMJ  2008;336:1085 (17 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39577.417407.3A

Letters

Continuous deep sedation

Please, don’t forget ethical responsibilities

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A caveat to the assumption that terminal or palliative sedation can be accepted as the norm by healthcare professionals is that patients and their relatives should be contacted and their wishes, where possible, properly obtained.¹ This is not as straightforward as it sounds.

My own, previously well and robust, 92 year old father was admitted as a medical emergency with rectal haemorrhage. He had moved to live in a rest home three weeks earlier because of deteriorating health of uncertain cause, having spent all of his life living independently and in robust health (and fully lucid). On admission his haemoglobin was about 60 g/l, and initial resuscitation, blood transfusion, was successful. However, an urgent abdominal computed tomography scan showed a locally invading colonic carcinoma at the splenic flexure—with little chance he might survive surgery or, at least, long after it, and terminal sedation was decided on. Neither he (I later . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ Upper Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand

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Continuous deep sedation in patients nearing death

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