Definition of terms used in limitation of treatment and providing palliative care at the end of life: The Indian council of medical research commission report

Naveen Salins, Roop Gursahani, Roli Mathur, Shivakumar Iyer, Stanley Macaden, Nagesh Simha, Raj Kumar Mani, MR RajagopalIndian Journal of Critical Care Medicine 2018 22(4):249-262Background: Indian hospitals, in general, lack policies on the limitation of inappropriate life-sustaining interventions at the end of life. To facilitate discussion, preparation of guidelines and framing of laws, terminologies relating to the treatment limitation, and providing palliative care at the end-of-life care (EOLC) need to be defined and brought up to date. Methodology: This consensus document on terminologies and definitions of terminologies was prepared under the aegis of the Indian Council of Medical Research. The consensus statement was created using Nominal Group and Delphi Method. Results: Twenty-five definitions related to the limitations of treatment and providing palliative care at the end of life were created by reviewing existing international documents and suitably modifying it to the Indian sociocultural context by achieving national consensus. Twenty-five terminologies defined within the scope of this document are (1) terminal illness, (2) actively dying, (3) life-sustaining treatment, (4) potentially inappropriate treatment, (5) cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), (6) do not attempt CPR, (7) withholding life-sustaining treatment, (8) withdrawing life-sustaining treatment, (9) euthanasia (10) active shortening of the dying process, (11) physician-assisted suicide, (12) pallia...
Source: Indian Journal of Critical Care Medicine - Category: Intensive Care Authors: Source Type: research