%0 Journal Article
%T Life-sustaining treatment: when should it be withheld or withdrawn?
%A Asl£¿han AKPINAR
%A Nermin ERSOY
%J Turkish Journal of Oncology
%D 2012
%I KARE Publishing
%X The development of new life-sustaining treatments may result in lives with questionable life quality or may sometimes extend the duration of death. Under these circumstances, patients, their relatives and/or the healthcare professionals are faced with decisions about life-sustaining treatments. There are two forms of decisions regarding life-sustaining treatment limitation, which are ethically coequal: withholding and withdrawing treatments. The decision can be made by the patient in the presence of decision-making capacity or by a suitable proxy, or the patient may have made a living will prior to the loss of their decision-making capacity. However, it is not always possible to know the patient¡¯s wishes, and in such circumstances, it is the healthcare professional(s)¡¯ responsibility to decide. The aim of this paper is to discuss the ethical reasoning for limiting life-sustaining treatment in the context of refusal, living will, principle of proportionality, quality of life, treatment futility, and triage.
%K Ethics
%K medical
%K withholding treatment
%K withdrawing treatment
%K medical futility
%K quality of life.
%U http://onkder.org/pdf.php3?id=805