[Intensive care - palliative care. Contradiction or supplement? Considerations on ethical issues and principles in the treatment of dying patients]

Abstract

Over the last five decades the progress in intensive care has extended the limitations of controlling the process of dying and given doctors more influence in determining the time of death. More recently, palliative care has emerged as a new approach in response to the ethical dilemmas of modern medicine, which accepts that dying is a natural process that should not be hastened or delayed through medical interventions. While in Germany in 1999 more than 50 000 people have died in intensive care units, only a small number of 8000 patients have died in palliative care. In comparison to the highly-developed intensive care sector, palliative care is a much neglected area. The public debate following the legalisation of euthanasia in the Netherlands has highlighted concerns in Germany that intensive care has the potential of inappropriately prolonging life and raised expectations about the alternative therapies offered by palliative care. Doctors in intensive care and in palliative care face similar ethical dilemmas, though with a different weighting: the dilemma between professional judgement and patient autonomy, between traditional medical roles and patient self-determination and the dilemma of extending the span of life at the expense of quality of life. The approach of palliative care with its strong focus on alleviating the suffering of the terminally ill, has influenced the ethical debate of dying in intensive care. Although intensive care and palliative care have different aims and priorities, there are common problems of decision-making which could benefit from a shared orientation and interdisciplinary debate. Both the interpretation of a dying parent's will as well as withdrawing or withholding treatment in patients who are unable to decide for themselves should not merely be guided by the debate on active and passive euthanasia, but rather take into account the appropriateness or inappropriateness of medical actions in the specific situation.