“High Tech” medicine, excessive therapy and undignified death

Abstract

Hipocratic medicine already had as objectives, not only to cure but
also to relieve suffering, condemning at the same time, obviously pointless treatment.
In the latter half of the 20th century the health of the individual
has become a kind of religion in which the use of high technology
is not always adjusted to the patient who is nearing the end of life
but keeps being submitted to treatments to prolong it, transforming the final stages of life into an agonising dying process. This is
always associated with therapeutic futility including the trend to
defi ne the extent of treatment according to available resources.
The article concludes that it is necessary to recover the objectives of Hipocratic medicine which place value on the person, their
values and choices; to recognize when curative medicine should be replaced by palliative.
The article ends by drawing attention to Portugal and the
guidelines issued in 1995 by the Conselho Nacional de Ética
(National Council of Ethics) para as Ciencias da vida about the
ethical aspects of health care related to the end of life.