Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Jun;19(2):137-43.

[Therapeutic limitation conducts in intensive care unit patients]

[Article in Portuguese]
Almir Galvão Vieira Bitencourt  1 , Maira Pereira Dantas  2 , Flávia Branco Cerqueira Serra Neves  3 , Alessandro de Moura Almeida  1 , Rodrigo Morel Vieira de Melo  1 , Ligia Carvalho Albuquerque  1 , Tiana Mascarenhas Godinho  1 , Sydney Agareno  4 , José Mário M Teles  5 , Augusto M C Farias  2 , Otavio H Messeder  2
Affiliations
  • PMID: 25310771

[Therapeutic limitation conducts in intensive care unit patients]

[Article in Portuguese]
Almir Galvão Vieira Bitencourt et al. Rev Bras Ter Intensiva. 2007 Jun.

Abstract

Background and objectives: There is a growing tendency of looking for "dying with dignity", rather than to prolong death and suffering of terminal patients on intensive care units (ICU). This study aims to evaluate medical practices that suggest therapeutic limitation (TL) in patients who died in an adult ICU.

Methods: A retrospective exploratory study was carried out to evaluate medical records of patients who died in a general adult ICU of a private hospital in Salvador-BA, between January and August of 2003, after at least 24 hours from the admission. The patients were classified, in relation to their deaths, in: "not responding to cardiopulmonary resuscitation", "brain death", "decision not to resuscitate" (DNR) and "withhold or withdrawal life-support measures".

Results: Sixty seven patients were included, corresponding to 90.4% of the deaths occurred in this ICU during the referred period. The most of them (56.7%) were women and the patients’ mean age was 66.58 ± 17.86 years. Suggestive measures of TL were found in 59.7% of the patients, being "withhold of life-support measures" the most important (35.8%), followed by DNR (17.9%) and "withdrawal of life-support measures" (6%). The procedures most commonly omitted were use of vasoactive drugs and dialysis, while antibiotics were the most discontinued. The use of TL measures was more frequent in clinical patients.

Conclusions: The results of the present study suggest high frequencies of medical conducts suggestive of TL in a general ICU in Northeast of Brazil. Therapeutic methods that could cause discomfort or suffering to the patients, as nutrition, sedation and analgesia, were rarely omitted or discontinued.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types