General Practice
Palliative sedation is often initiated at the patient's request. It can also be initiated by the physician who would discuss the option with the patient and family. Palliative sedation can be used for short periods with the plan to awaken the patient after a given time period, making terminal sedation a less correct term. The patient is sedated while symptom control is attempted, then the patient is awakened to see if symptom control is achieved. In some cases, palliative sedation is begun with the plan to not attempt to reawaken the patient. One such common example is a patient with an enlarging cancer in the throat that compresses the trachea in a patient who does not want intubation or a tracheostomy, so that eventually symptom control is impossible. Instead of experiencing death by suffocation, once symptoms are intolerable some patients will request palliative sedation to ease their symptoms as death approaches.
Read more about this topic: Palliative Sedation
Famous quotes containing the words general and/or practice:
“It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“In my practice I’ve seen how people have allowed their humanity to drain away. Only it happens slowly instead of all at once. I didn’t seem to mind.... All of us, a little bit. We harden our hearts. Grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear.”
—Daniel Mainwaring (1902–1977)