What is palliative sedation?

Australia · 29 August 2026 · 3 min read · Reviewed by Dr Kane Treble

Palliative sedation is the careful use of sedating medicines to reduce a dying person's awareness so severe suffering can be relieved.

General information: This page gives general information for people in Australia. It cannot tell you whether palliative sedation is right for one person. If symptoms are severe or not settling, contact the person's palliative care team, doctor, nurse or other treating health professional.

Palliative sedation is the careful use of sedating medicines to reduce a dying person's awareness so severe suffering can be relieved. It is usually considered only when a person is close to death and has symptoms that cannot be controlled in other ways.

It is not a routine step for everyone who is dying. Most distressing symptoms can be eased without palliative sedation.

When it may be considered

Palliative sedation may be discussed when symptoms are refractory. This means the team has assessed the problem, tried reasonable treatments, and the symptom is still causing severe suffering, or further treatment would be too burdensome or unlikely to work in time.

Symptoms may include severe breathlessness, agitation, delirium, pain, seizures, or other distress that cannot be relieved enough by usual care. Specialist palliative care advice is important.

Before palliative sedation is used, the team should check for causes that might be treatable. For example, agitation may be worsened by pain, urinary retention, constipation, infection, medicine effects, fear or a noisy room.

What it can look like

Sedation can be light, moderate or deep. It can be used for a short time, such as to settle a crisis, or it can continue until death when symptoms remain severe and the person is very close to death.

The medicine is usually given by injection under the skin or through a continuous infusion. The team should monitor comfort, breathing, distress, side effects and family concerns. The aim is the lowest level of sedation that relieves the suffering.

Is it meant to cause death?

No. The aim of palliative sedation is symptom relief. It is different from voluntary assisted dying, where the aim is to bring about death through a legal VAD process.

Appropriate palliative sedation uses proportionate doses for symptom relief. The person dies from their illness. Because this is a serious treatment, families should expect clear explanation, documentation and review.

Questions to ask

Useful questions include:

What symptom are we trying to relieve?
What has already been tried?
Is there anything reversible that still needs checking?
How sleepy is the person expected to become?
Will they still be able to hear or respond?
Can the sedation be reduced if the symptom settles?
Who has agreed to the plan?

When to get help now

Contact the palliative care team urgently if the person has severe pain, breathlessness, agitation, panic, seizures or distress that is not settling with the current plan.

Call 000 if there is a life-threatening emergency and there is no expected-death plan, or if you cannot contact the treating team and the person appears unsafe or severely distressed.