Forum.
Introduction
From a linguistic point of view a definition is a thorough description of the meaning of a lexical unit. A lexical unit is a form-meaning composite (ref1). All definitions have three parts: term being defined, classification, and identifying characteristics.There have been empirical studies about sedation in palliative care practice since the first report of Ventafridda (Ventafridda V, 1990). However, the interpretation of research findings is difficult due to inconsistent use of terminology (Sales JP, 2001; Wein S, 2000; Rousseau P. 2000). A recent review revealed that, among 13 studies of sedation for terminally ill patients, only 6 reports clearly defined sedation. The prevalence of patients requiring sedation and definitions varied widely among the studies (Sales JP, 2001). In Chater’s study, sedation was defined as “the intention of deliberately inducing and maintaining deep sleep”, but only 40% of palliative care specialists surveyed completely agreed with this proposed definition (Chater S, 1998). In addition, while some articles have focused on continuous deep sedation (Quill T, 2000; Chater S, 1998), various types of sedation, such as mild (conscious) and intermittent (temporary) sedation, are applied according to the degree of patient distress and their medical condition in actual clinical situations (Cherny NI, 1994). Therefore, it is important to establish a uniformly accepted definition of sedation for palliative medicine, because it is regarded as a treatment option, but at present there is no standardized term (no MESH term) to search the literature.
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