End of Life Care and Ethics Vocabulary

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering legal directives, end-of-life care concepts, and medical ethics derived directly from the lecture notes.

Advance Directive

A document that informs healthcare providers and family members of the medical plan a patient wants or does not want when they become terminally ill or incapacitated.

Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment

Specific physician orders executed when a conscious or incapacitated patient specifies preferences regarding interventions like resuscitation, intubation, blood transfusions, cardiac, and pulmonary care.

Durable Power of Attorney (POA)

An authorized individual granted legal capacity to make healthcare decisions—including medical treatments, procedures, medication management, long-term care placement, and end-of-life care—for an incapacitated patient.

Do Not Attempt to Resuscitate (DNR)

A medical order indicating that CPR should not be attempted, which is formally charted on yellow paper and typically identified in the hospital by a purple bracelet.

Hospice Care

Care focused on comfort and quality of life rather than extreme invasive interventions, provided to patients evaluated to have less than six months to live.

Palliative Care

Care focused on symptom management and quality of life, which can be delivered alongside ongoing, extensive medical treatments.

Terminal Delirium

A state of acute confusion or agitation occurring in a patient one to two weeks prior to death.

Life Review

A structured process facilitated by a trained interviewer in which a patient reflects on events and actions throughout their entire life.

Reminiscing

The process of randomly reflecting on past memories or events.

Active Euthanasia

The intentional ending of a patient's life by a healthcare provider or third party directly administering a lethal action or medication; it is not supported in the United States.

Physician-Assisted Death

A practice where a physician prescribes medication that a terminally ill patient chooses to self-administer.

Passive Euthanasia

The withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment—such as mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition, dialysis, or CPR—allowing the underlying disease to cause death.

Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking (VSED)

A deliberate choice made by a terminal or suffering patient of their own free will to refuse food and hydration to hasten death.

Terri Schibow Case

A landmark 15-year legal dispute between a persistent vegetative state patient's husband and parents regarding the removal of her PEG tube.