Palliative therapy concepts in intensive care medicine

Involvement of palliative care is so far not common practice for critically ill patients on surgical intensive care units (ICUs) in Germany. The objectives of palliative care concepts are improvement of patient quality of life by relief of disease-related symptoms using an interdisciplinary approach and support of patients and their relatives considering their current physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. The need for palliative care can be identified via defined screening criteria. Integration of palliative care can either be realized using a consultative model which focusses on involvement of palliative care consultants or an integrative model which embeds palliative care principles into the routine daily practice by the ICU team. Early integration of palliative care in terms of advance care planning (ACP) can lead to an increase in goals of care discussions and quality of life as well as a decrease of mortality and length of stay on the ICU. Moreover, stress reactions of relatives and ICU staff can be reduced and higher satisfaction with therapy can be achieved. The core of goal of care discussions is professional and well-structured communication between patients, relatives and staff. Consideration of palliative care principles by model-based integration into ICU practice can improve complex intensive care courses of disease in a productive but dignified way without neglecting curative attempts.