Death by equivocation: a manifold definition of terminal sedation

The phrase 'terminal sedation' (TS) was first used in the context of palliative medicine in the early 1900s (see, for example, Enck 1991). However, from the very outset there have been problems created by a lack of agreed terminology, and more significantly, a lack of agreed definition of terms. In this chapter, we seek to establish a richer, multi-dimensional definition of TS, our 'manifold' definition, which captures the critical factors involved in the various forms of TS. We being, in section 2, by considering the range of definitions and terms that have been used for TS, before considering in section 3 what factors should be included in our definition, and, in section 4, setting our the group of binary factors that consitute our manifold definition of TS.