By Judy Schwarz, PhD, RN*  

The NY Times article of 12/26/09 that described use of palliative sedation in hospice institutional settings provided helpful and clinically accurate informative—for the most part. These few notes are meant to address those issues raised by the article that may unduly alarm dying patients, their families, and their clinical caregivers.

1) There is a consensus among palliative care clinicians that “palliative sedation to unconsciousness” (a descriptive term that eliminates some of the visceral reaction elicited by use of the term “terminal sedation”) is an intervention used only when other therapies that do not compromise patient consciousness have failed and the patient continues to experience intolerable and intractable suffering that cannot otherwise be relieved.

2) Use of palliative sedation to unconsciousness has NOT been shown to cause a hastened death. Research showing that patients at the very end of life who receive palliative sedation do not die more quickly than patients who are not sedated has been published in such peer-reviewed journals as Annals of Oncology, Journal of Palliative Medicine, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Archives of Internal Medicine, and Palliative Medicine. (In response to the Times article, the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization has made available a bibliography of these articles.)

This intervention is generally only provided when patients are “imminently” dying (a condition the recognition of which requires experience and clinical judgment) and is distinct from “respite sedation,” which is used when clinicians plan to awaken a patient from the unconscious state to […]