An end-of-life glossary

Euthanasia: Knowingly and intentionally performing an act that is explicitly intended to end the life of a person with an incurable illness. The act is undertaken with empathy and compassion and without personal gain.

Physician-assisted suicide: Knowingly and intentionally providing a person with the knowledge or means, or both, required to commit suicide, including counselling about lethal doses of drugs, prescribing such lethal doses or supplying the drugs.

Palliative sedation therapy: The use of pharmacological agents to reduce consciousness. Reserved for the treatment of “intolerable” or uncontrollable symptoms in patients with an advanced, progressive illness. Continuous palliative sedation therapy is the use of ongoing sedation continued until the patient’s death. Medical aid in dying: A generic term encompassing both euthanasia and physicianassisted suicide. Advance directives: Verbal or written instructions that the patient has provided about the kind of care they want or do not want in the event they cannot speak for themselves. Life support: Medical or surgical procedures such as tube feeding, mechanical ventilation, kidney dialysis and CPR. All use artificial means to restore or prolong life. Without

them, the person would die.

Comfort measures: Treatments to keep patients comfortable (such as pain control) but not to keep people artificially alive or cure any illness. Palliative care: Care for people living with a life-limiting illness that is usually at an advanced stage. Care is aimed at improving the quality of living and dying. It includes pain and symptom control, as well as psychological, emotional, social and spiritual support. The right to refuse medical treatment: The right of a competent adult to refuse unwanted medical treatment or to demand that treatment, once begun, be stopped.