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Information about Life Support

For other uses of "life support", see Life support (disambiguation)


Life support, in the medical field, refers to a set of therapies for preserving a patient's life when essential body systems are not functioning sufficiently to sustain life unaided. Life support therapies utilize some combination of several techniques: feeding tubes, intravenous drips, total parenteral nutrition, mechanical respiration, heart/lung bypass, urinary catheterization and dialysis. The same techniques are also used for intensive care or in some cases during surgery, though life support is employed to stabilize a patient and is typically not sufficient to allow full recovery from their condition.

Ethics

Some consider the practice of artificially prolonging the life of an individual who will not recover to be unethical. Roman Catholic moral teachings, pronounced in 1993, suggest that the employment of artificial means is not necessary to fulfill the duty to respect life; however the term "artificial means" may vary in meaning between different schools of thought within and outside Catholicism. Most Catholic theologians however, divide the issue into "ordinary" and "extraordinary" means, and believe that it is an ethical imperative to continue the ordinary means, but ethically neutral to withhold the extraordinary means. They define ordinary means as things like feeding, and extraordinary means as things like artificial breathing.

See also

Life support is a set of therapies for preserving a patient's life when essential body systems are not functioning sufficiently to sustain life.

Life support may also refer to:
  • Life support (aviation), the field centered on ensuring the safety of aircrew

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A feeding tube is a medical device used to provide nutrition to patients who cannot or refuse to (q.v. hunger strike) obtain nutrition by swallowing. The state of being fed by a feeding tube is called enteral feeding or tube feeding.
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Intravenous therapy or IV therapy is the giving of liquid substances directly into a vein. It can be intermittent or continuous; continuous administration is called an intravenous drip.
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Total parenteral nutrition (TPN), is the practice of feeding a person intravenously, bypassing the usual process of eating and digestion. The person receives nutritional formulas containing salts, glucose, amino acids, lipids and added vitamins.
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mechanical ventilation is a method to mechanically assist or replace spontaneous breathing when patients cannot do so on their own, and must be done so after invasive intubation with an endotracheal or tracheostomy tube through which air is directly delivered (in contrast to
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Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is a technique that temporarily takes over the function of the heart and lungs during surgery, maintaining the circulation of blood and the oxygen content of the body.
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In urinary catheterization, a urinary catheter (such as a Foley catheter) is a plastic tube which is either inserted through a patient's urinary tract into their bladder or attached to a male patient's penis.
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dialysis is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function (renal replacement therapy) due to renal failure. Dialysis may be used for very sick patients who have suddenly but temporarily, lost their kidney function (acute renal failure) or for quite
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Intensive Care Medicine or critical care medicine is a branch of medicine concerned with the provision of life support or organ support systems in patients who are critically ill and who usually require intensive monitoring.
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surgery (from the Greek χειρουργική meaning "hand work") is the medical specialty that treats diseases or injuries by operative manual and instrumental treatment.
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Medical ethics is primarily a field of applied ethics, the study of moral values and judgments as they apply to medicine. As a scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and
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Basic Life Support (BLS) is a specific level of prehospital medical care provided by trained responders, including emergency medical technicians, in the absence of advanced medical care.
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Advanced cardiac life support or (ACLS) refers to a set of clinical interventions for the urgent treatment of cardiac arrest and other life threatening medical emergencies, as well as the knowledge and skills to deploy those interventions.
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The Uniform Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (1985, revised 1989), has been recommended as a Uniform Act in the United States, and subsequently been passed by many states. The law allows a person to declare a living will specifying that, if the situation arises, he or she does not
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