The COVID-19 pandemic has provoked an unprecedented health crisis in our recent history, with clinical and social peculiarities that have created an important role for Palliative Care (PC) teams, highlighting their participation in decision-making at the end of life and in the development of Palliative Sedation (PS) protocols A significant percentage of patients with a negative evolution, without improvement with the available treatments or admission criteria in Intensive Care Units (ICU), presented a high symptomatic load and high levels of suffering, due to the refractoriness of the symptoms;therefore, as it happens in other terminal diseases, PS was frequently required Despite the abundance of literature about SARS-CoV-2 infection, so far, there is a shortage of publications about PS in COVID patients In this article we review the existing literature and present our experience in three Hospital Palliative Care Units regarding the indications of PS, drugs and doses, considering also the important ethical aspects in this context, such as patient and family information and decision making in a situation of population confinement and strict isolation measures The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenge for the whole health system, including PC We must seize this opportunity to ensure that our patients suffer as little as possible in the future, through access to therapeutic measures such as PS
Palliative sedation: Has anything changed during the pandemic?