Private Practitioner, Milan, Italy -
Italian Society of Anesthesia Analgesia and Intensive Care, SIAARTI, Rome, Italy.
Minerva Anestesiol. 2017 May;83(5):524-528. doi: 10.23736/S0375-9393.16.11736-5. Epub 2016 Dec 22.
In January 2016 the Italian National Bioethics Committee (NBC) published a position statement entitled Deep and continuous palliative sedation in the imminence of death, related to the use of sedation and analgesia for relief from pain and psychological distress in dying patients. In this statement the Committee points out the clinical and ethical appropriateness of palliative sedation as a therapeutic procedure. As a result, today palliative sedation has to be considered useful, scientifically safe and reliable, and acknowledged as an integral part of good clinical practice. At the same time, the position statement, once and for all, makes clear that palliative sedation cannot and must not be equated with the practice of euthanasia. Thus, this document should be known by health professionals caring for dying patients not only in palliative as well as in intensive care settings, but it should be also considered as a milestone aimed to encourage and ease a widespread implementation of this procedure in all health care settings.
2016 年 1 月，意大利国家生物伦理委员会（NBC）发布了一份题为《临近死亡时的深度和持续镇静》的立场声明，涉及使用镇静和镇痛来缓解临终患者的疼痛和心理困扰。在这份声明中，委员会指出了镇静作为一种治疗方法的临床和伦理适宜性。因此，如今镇静应该被认为是有用的、科学上安全可靠的，并被公认为良好临床实践的一个组成部分。与此同时，该立场声明也明确指出，镇静不能也不应该等同于安乐死的做法。因此，这份文件不仅应该为照顾临终患者的医疗专业人员所熟知，而且应该被视为一个里程碑，旨在鼓励和促进在所有医疗保健环境中广泛实施这一程序。
