Palliative Sedation - General Practice

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.