Medical Record Documentation and Symptom Management at the End of Life in the NICU

摘要

For a small percentage of neonates in the NICU, death becomes an inevitable outcome. The majority of their deaths result from withholding or withdrawing life support.6-7 Parents make the decision to have life-sustaining therapies discontinued with the hope of ending pain and suffering for their infant.8 To ensure this, ongoing management of manifested symptoms is required during the time between the discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment and death to ensure that the infant remains free of pain and suffering as they die. This is a difficult time period to manage as time to death can be hard to predict and death can take minutes to days to occur.8'9 And, parents begin to question their decision the longer it takes for their infant to die.