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They just stopped giving him blood and let him bleed to death because his body was not a cash crop anymore. Ask a lot of questions yes but it does not mean anyone will answer you correctly.
One of the definitions that I have found is this:
"Passive" assistance would be a form of "Physician"s Assisted Suicide" and an "Active" assistance would be more akin to Euthanasia.
To the other comments.
In Palliative care the goal is comfort but allowing the patient to continue with current treatments, their current Doctors, Therapy be it physical or occupational.
Hospice the goal is comfort but medications relating to the life limiting condition are discontinued as well as any therapies. Medications for "chronic" ailments can be continued if the patient wishes. (So a person diagnosed with lung cancer could continue treatment for diabetes for example, or continue dialysis if they are on dialysis) but they would have to discontinue chemo and other treatments for the cancer. I think many people eventually elect to discontinue treatments for other ailments though as the life limiting disease progresses. And again as with Palliative Care the goal is comfort. It is only towards the end when the patient can no longer take medications by mouth that Morphine is given. (I was giving my Husband regular meds until about 2 weeks before he died, I switched to the Morphine as it became difficult for him to eat) Hospice does not do IV's, Tube Feeding so medications can not be given in that way. (If a person that is being tube fed goes on Hospice the tube can remain, it is not a requirement that it be removed)
The goal of Hospice is NOT to quickly kill a person with Morphine, the goal is comfort for End of Life, how ever long that takes, some are on Hospice for hours some for days, some weeks or months and in our case years.
I don't want to hijack this post, so I'll keep this short.
I only know what we did for daddy and what it was called. In Pc, he opted to stop all medications but those for pain. He had no chronic issues that needing addressing. He did get in home nursing and personal care, but the "goal" I think was to ease him into Hospice. I really don't remember how long he did pc--and you're right, I have heard a lot of people bandy that term about and it seems to mean different things to each person.
One of our very good physicians described Palliative Care as focused on those with chronic conditions, maintaining meds, providing home health care including a visiting physician, treating conditions at home as much as possible, but not focusing on active end of life situations.
I think this program is so new that even the medical community doesn't completely understand it.
Passive--means doing nothing.
Active means you're doing something.
Do you mean the difference between palliative care (keeping patient comfortable, but stopping all meds that are not wanted--basically, allowing for a slow death to occur) or Hospice, which is more "aggressive" only in the fact that most patients are at the EOL stage and take only morphine and other sedating drugs to keep them comfortable?
Otherwise, you're talking about just doing 'nothing' and 'euthanasia'.