What is the connection between palliative care and euthanasia?
When a person is very ill and is coming to the end of life, palliative care is a suitable type of medical care. This includes the release of drugs and other forms of treatment that makes the dying person as comfortable as possible, but which cannot prolong life or cure disease. Eutanasia is a situation where another person, such as a doctor or family member, deliberately ends the patient's life in an effort to prevent suffering. Palliative care and euthanasia are two separate concepts, but because palliative care often involves the use of morphine as a painkillers, it is theoretically possible that the patient's life can be shortened if too much medication is given.
normally palliative care takes into account the needs and preferences of the patient and family. If a dying person has a lot of pain, a strong painkiller such as morphine may be required to improve or quality of life. One advantage of morphine, in addition to anesthesia of pain, is that the patient may be able to talk more comfortably with loved ones. Friends and family members can also experience lowerStress as the patient's comfort level increases.
Palliative care and euthanasia are completely different situations in medical care, but in euthanasia, strong drugs that are commonly used in palliative care may also be used. Euthanasia is a term that can refer to several different types of death, but they all have in common that euthanasia is to end life, usually prevent suffering. Conditions where palliative care and euthanasia can be connected require specific conditions.
Sometimes in palliative care, a person with a terminal disease can register painkillers if necessary. In other cases, health workers manage painkillers. Painkillers can have effects outside the anesthetic pain characteristics. Morphine, for example at sufficiently high doses, the patient may be less able to breathe normally, and this may accelerate the onset of death than thatwas different.
It is therefore possible for the patient or physician to administer enough medication to speed up the process of death that can be considered euthanasia unless the patient provides morphine. Strictly, however, the term "euthanasia" requires drug administration intended to kill a patent before natural death. The risk of this usually undergoes the need for strong drugs to alleviate the dying person of pain. Although this type of palliative care and interaction of euthanasia is often considered quite common for dying people, the doctor can usually see signs of drug overdose, and can take steps to improve breathing and thus life.
Therefore,euthanasia in palliative care usually does not match, although severe painkillers can potentially reduce life. This may happen, especially if the dying person does not want to have any medical intervention to alleviate the effects of high doses of painkillers. Other forms of euthanasia that may not be illegal in some countries include the withdrawal of medical treatment as the wishes of PacENTA, or if the patient is of comatose or otherwise unable to make a decision, the family's wishes may be taken into account.