Euthanasia. Cause the death of the patient directly by the health personnel, upon voluntary, informed and conscious request. Decreased therapeutic effort or palliative sedation, among others, cannot be considered as euthanasia.

Assisted suicide. Put an end to life, once the necessary resources have been received from someone. If the provider of these resources is a health professional, it is called “assisted medical suicide.”

Sedation. The decrease of consciousness, intentionally, when the symptoms presented by the patient cannot be relieved in any other way, called refractory symptoms, to avoid the suffering caused by them. Terminal sedation is called the deep and irreversible decrease in the consciousness of the dying person.

Double effect. Acceleration of death as a result of treatments used to relieve suffering.

Therapeutic insistence. Establishment of inadequate and/or abusive therapeutic measures to prevent the death of the dying patient. It is a practice contrary to medical deontology. Its reverse is an adaptation of the therapeutic effort: not starting a treatment or adjusting its intensity when the patient's diagnosis of life is scarce.