Palliative care

Neukirchen, M., Metaxa, V. & Schaefer, M.S. Palliative care in intensive care. Intensive Care Med 49, 1538–1540 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00134-023-07260-z

EXPLANATION:  Palliative care has been defined by the World Health Organization as “an approach that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threateningillness, through prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, impeccable assessment, and treatment of pain and other problems: physical, psychological, social and spiritual”. The specialty has developed and expanded to involve symptom control, improvement of patient and family-centered communication, ethics consultations, education, advance care planning and goals-of-care discussions with effects on patients, relatives and ICU staff and reducing the risk of post-intensive care syndrome.