Dysthanasia vs Orthothanasia

Health professionals, especially those working in hospital services, are continually exposed to
situations that deal with the death of people they assist. They will confront many ethical dilemmas and
challenges. Providing good care to dying patients requires physicians to be knowledgeable of potential
ethical dilemmas and be aware of strategies and interventions aimed to avoid conflict. It is important for
the physician to be proactive with regard to decision making and have good communication skills.
Keeping the patient central in all decision making, that is, respecting patient autonomy, is essential to
ethical care for dying patients. Thus, the role of advance care planning is important in caring for patients
at the end of life. Health care providers are subjected to different responses to deal with the condition
of the dying patient, for example in some hospitals is euthanasia. Aside from euthanasia, there are two
more concepts , namely dysthanasia and orthothanasia. What do these two concept means?

Dysthanasia is understood as excessive investment to extend the life of the people and a long,
slow death. It is a process that leads to the artificial extension of life beyond what it would be biological
and avoid death. This is also known as "therapeutic obstinacy" or "medical futility." This practice can be
considered futile or useless treatment, without benefits for the person in his terminal phase, where
death and dying process is merely prolonged and not exactly his life. Dysthanasia is a little known term,
but which is oftentimes practiced in the health area. It is a subject of interest in bioethics and according
to the Bioethics Dictionary it is translated as "difficult or painful death, used to indicate the extension of
the dying process through treatment that only prolongs patients' biological life. It has neither quality of
life nor dignity. Consequently, patients have a prolonged and slow death, frequently accompanied by
suffering, pain and anguish.

On the other hand, orthothanasia has a different meaning. The word orthothanasia was used for
the first time in the 1950s. It means correct dying, or allowing to die or letting die. In allowing to or
letting die, therefore, death is neither directly caused nor intended or postponed. It merely happens. It
is an event, a part of the temporal life of every human being. Hence, allowing to die is anti-euthanasia,
which unethically anticipates death, and anti-dysthanasia, which unduly postpones it. Orthothanasia
means death at the right time, neither disproportionately abbreviating nor extending the dying process.
It is a more positive dimension of the right to die and consists of dying humanely, peacefully, an ideal
death. It is the process of the humanization of death and alleviation of pain, but it does not abusively
prolong death with the implementation of futile treatment, which would cause more suffering to
terminal patients. Orthothanasia is the practice of not avoiding patients' death, rather it ceases
investments that extend life at a medium term. Its great challenge is to enable terminal patients to keep
their dignity, where there is a commitment to the well being of patients in the final phase of a disease.

In conclusion, these two terms are not the same. To make it shorter and simplier, dysthanasia is
defined as therapeutic obstinacy practiced with the aim to postpone death, and orthothanasia is death
in its natural process, without further treatment.

References:
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https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0104-11692009000500003&script=sci_arttext

https://www.ipl.org/essay/Pros-And-Cons-Of-Dysthanasia-F3X2MWHESJPR

https://www.oclarim.com.mo/en/2017/06/09/life-matters-4-orthothanasia-or-allowing-to-die/

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