New Life-Sustaining Treatment Guidelines Proposed in Japan

Tokyo, March 17 (Jiji Press)–The Japanese Association for Acute Medicine and three other academic societies in the country have proposed new guidelines for determining when to end life-sustaining treatment for patients, inviting public comments until March 27. The current guidelines, established in 2014 by the Japanese Association for Acute Medicine, the Japanese Society of Intensive Care Medicine and the Japanese Circulation Society, define the “end of life” at emergency and treatment sites. They state that life-sustaining treatment can be concluded based on the patient’s intentions and appropriate medical judgment. Since the establishment of the current guidelines, advances in medical technology have enabled the support of seriously ill patients. But there have been instances where this support does not align with patients’ preferences. Consequently, the Japan Society for Palliative Medicine has joined the effort to revise the guidelines. The proposed new guidelines do not define the end of life but focus on procedures for deciding whether to continue treatment after discussions with patients and their families. They state that medical teams, including nurses, should make decisions after careful consideration of the patient’s will and prior intentions. The proposed guidelines also highlight the importance of continued care, such as pain relief for patients and support for their families, after treatment concludes. They call for minimizing examinations and refraining from cardiopulmonary resuscitation in cases of cardiac arrest. Patients with intractable diseases have expressed concerns about the proposed new guidelines, saying that treatment may be discontinued for the convenience of hospitals and families. “I feel a strong sense of crisis because they promote the choice to die rather than the choice to live,” Hitomi Sakai, a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, said of the proposed new guidelines at a press conference on March 6. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]