A strong and often polarized debate has taken place during recent years concerning the
consequences of dehydration in the terminally ill patient. When a patient has a severely …

The need to treat dehydration in terminally ill patients has become a very controversial topic.
Numerous reports in the literature illustrate opposing viewpoints from both clinical and …

Patients who are in the last few days of life are often too frail to take oral fluids and nutrition.
This may be due entirely to the natural history of their disease, although the use of sedative …

The arguments for the maintenance of hydration in terminally ill patients has tended to come
from" the traditional medical model"(2, 3, 10). A recent analysis of the use of intravenous …

Preview Although provision of fluids and nutrition is generally considered a necessity in
dying patients, there is growing evidence that dehydration (or at least avoidance of …

Significant numbers of patients die each year from malignant disease. The question of
whether or not to administer artificial hydration therapy to the patient who is in the last few …

OBJECTIVE: To provide a clinical review of issues surrounding reduced fluid intake in
palliative care patients and a practical approach to care for these patients. DATA SOURCES …

The management of hydration in patients at the end of life has become a controversial issue.
Routine practice varies from almost universal intravenous hydration in acute care settings to …

Areas of future research should include patients at various stages of the illness trajectory
and involve noncancer illnesses. Appropriately powered, randomized, double-blind studies …

Whether a terminally ill cancer patient should be actively fed or simply hydrated through
subcutaneous or intravenous infusion of isotonic fluids is a matter of ongoing controversy …