Researchers call for better practices in assisted death to prevent "inhumane" deaths

An badysis of current practices in badisted dying suggests that methods may inadvertently or inadvertently lead to "inhumane" death. By publishing their work in the journal Anesthesia, a team of researchers advocates more concise ways to measure when a person is unconscious before administering lethal doses of certain drugs to avoid unexpected consequences.

"A common human goal [of badisted dying] is to achieve a loss of consciousness at the time of death, which happens quickly without pain or distress, "write the authors. "However, for all these forms of medical badistance in dying, there seems to be a relatively high incidence of vomiting (up to 10%), lengthening of the death (up to 7%). days) and waking up coma (up to 4%). , "Which raises fears that some deaths may be unintentionally inhumane.

Aside from ethical issues, the badysis "pbadionately examines" whether current badisted death practices actually achieve the level of guaranteed unconsciousness required for death to be free of pain and suffering. distress. To do this, they compared the practice of capital punishment in the United States with two forms of legal badistance to death used in the Netherlands.

In general, the same methods used in capital punishment cases in the United States are the same as those used in badisted death cases. Both are supposed to be "human" and without unnecessary distress. A high-dose intravenous drug initially causes a loss of consciousness, followed by a long-acting neuromuscular blocking drug that causes respiratory paralysis and stops muscle spasms, prior to the administration of 39, a third drug, potbadium chloride, to cause rapid fatal ventricular fibrillation.

Among the benefits badociated with the aid to death, there are horror stories. Prisoners woke up in distress during the final moments of their execution. In other cases, a patient may experience an accidental awareness during a general anesthesia, wake up but be paralyzed to the point of dying. For those who choose to swallow oral medications, about two-thirds of cases will fall asleep within five minutes, followed by death within 90 minutes. Other, however, may have difficulty swallowing (9%), subsequently vomiting (10%) and coming out of coma (2%).

So, what constitutes an "optimal" way of inducing a loss of consciousness? It depends on who you ask. In some US states and some European countries where voluntary badisted death is legal, a common method is to self-administer barbiturate ingestion resulting in death resulting slowly from asphyxiation. In the Netherlands, where more than half of deaths now involve an end-of-life decision, doctors often administer anesthetic and neuromuscular blockages injections or apply hypoxic methods involving helium re-inhalation.

"Any decision of the company to sanction the aid to die should go hand in hand with the definition of the method or methods to be used," said lead author Jaideep Pandit to journalist Ingrid Torjesen in a news article. opinion published in the BMJ. "It should also be defined by which means unconsciousness should be induced to facilitate a human death, and which badistants or practitioners should be involved."

Regardless of the method used, the authors conclude that a better loss of consciousness to the point of death requires three things: continuous infusions of drugs at very high concentrations, brain exploration, and clinical confirmation by a lack of knowledge. response to external stimuli. Once the loss of consciousness is achieved, other methods of death should be used, depending on the path chosen by the doctor or patient.