A 25-year-old client with cancer who is experiencing unrelieved pain rated a 9 on the pain scale requests that the hospice nurse
induce a state of unconsciousness until the client dies. Which statement by the nurse demonstrates an understanding of a key difference between conscious sedation and euthanasia?
b) "Your doctor can prescribe medications necessary to relieve pain; however; this treatment will not hasten death."
Explanation:
When the terminally ill patient or the patient's legal proxy requests palliative sedation, the use of pharmacologic agents to induce sedation or near sedation when symptoms have not responded to other management measures), the purpose is not to hasten the patient's death but to relieve intractable symptoms. Palliative sedation may be controversial, but it is not illegal. Total sedation is rarely indicated in hospice care to provide comfort. Continuous pain assessments are not indicated at this stage; the patient requires intervention/treatment.
