It’s long been an open secret and assumption that putting terminally ill cancer and other patients under deep sedation can speed their death. Such speeding is often the aim, although physicians must tread carefully here given the legal and moral issues involved,
But now a Japanese study led by Dr. Isseki Maeda, a researcher at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, casts doubt on the assumption.
The study suggests that patients who receive continuous deep sedation to ease pain might not die any sooner than people who don’t get this type of palliative care.
This may mean that even more difficult decisions must be made for patients by their loved ones and hospital physicians.
