Palliative Sedation

In medicine, specifically in end-of-life care, palliative sedation (also known as terminal sedation, continuous deep sedation, or sedation for intractable distress in the dying/of a dying patient) is the palliative practice of relieving distress in a terminally ill person in the last hours or days of a dying patient's life, usually by means of a continuous intravenous or subcutaneous infusion of a sedative drug. This is an option of last resort for patients whose symptoms cannot be controlled by any other means. This should be differentiated from euthanasia as the goal of palliative sedation is to control symptoms through sedation but not shorten the patient's life, while in euthanasia the goal is to shorten life to cease suffering.

According to 2009 research, 16.5% of all deaths in the United Kingdom during 2007-2008 took place after continuous deep sedation. On the other hand, a 2009 survey of almost 4000 U.K. patients whose care had followed the Liverpool Care Pathway for the dying patient found that while 31% had received low doses of medication to control distress from agitation or restlessness, only 4% had required higher doses.