Informed consent and sedation.

The concept of autonomy was not included in the Hippocratic Oath. Nowadays the principle of respect for autonomy is an important right. The basic paradigm of autonomy in health-care, politics and other contexts is expressed as informed consent. In the palliative-care setting, there can be some difficulties in getting informed consent, especially at the end-of-life stage. Can it be good for the patient, always? Could there be some exceptions? At the time of agonizing pain, getting informed consent could become an additional burden for the patient. This present article attempts to shed light on this issue. In our experience, it is not necessary to obtain written consent for a patient who has already expressed his priorities in advance. We believe that this is a good stance for patients as well as doctors.