[Palliative care oriented therapy for all patients : recommendations of an expert circle]. / Palliativmedizinisch orientierte Therapieansätze für alle Patienten : Empfehlungen eines Expertenkreises.

BACKGROUND: Since 2011 palliative care has been a compulsory part of the German medical study course (so-called Q13 palliative and pain medicine). Palliative care content does not, however, as often taught, have to focus only on patients in the so-called palliative stages of disease. The aim of this investigation was to encourage a discussion concerning the integration of palliative care aspects into general medical treatment. METHODS: For data collection an open discussion of the main topics by experts in palliative medical care was used. The main outcome measures and recommendations included responses regarding current practices related to expert opinions, national and international literature and one case report. The literature search was performed using the databases "PubMed", "Medline" and "Google" (1990-2011). RESULTS: As an important consensus, the following recommendations for optimization of inpatient and outpatient care were: (1) integration of aspects of palliative care into medical curricula of all disciplines, (2) palliative care content should be extended to the general optimization of therapy for all patients, (3) palliative medicine should be part of the everyday medical practice in all disciplines and (4) palliative medicine should not be isolated as "death medicine" or medicine of the dying patient. CONCLUSIONS: Palliative care treatment is increasingly becoming integrated into medical education and into medical curricula of all disciplines. Palliative ideas and goals are focussed on patients in the so-called palliative stages of disease. Furthermore, palliative medicine is often described as the medicine of dying patients. As a result of this study it seems to make sense to extend palliative care aspects to all patients and to all patient care. The extent to which such opportunities exist and such health care is economically feasible remains to be the subject of further clinical studies.

[Palliative care and end-of-life patients in emergency situations. Recommendations on optimization of out-patient care]. / Palliativpatienten und Patienten am Lebensende in Notfallsituationen. Empfehlungen zur ambulanten Versorgungsoptimierung.

BACKGROUND: At the end of life acute exacerbations of medical symptoms (e.g. dyspnea) in palliative care patients often result in emergency medical services being alerted. The goals of this study were to discuss cooperation between emergency medical and palliative care structures to optimize the quality of care in emergencies involving palliative care patients. METHODS: For data collection an open discussion of the main topics by experts in palliative and emergency medical care was employed. Main outcome measures and recommendations included responses regarding current practices related to expert opinions and international literature sources. RESULTS: As the essential points of consensus the following recommendations for optimization of care were named: (1) integration of palliative care in the emergency medicine curricula for pre-hospital emergency physicians and paramedics, (2) development of outpatient palliative care, (3) integration of palliative care teams into emergency medical structures, (4) cooperation between palliative and emergency medical care, (5) integration of crisis intervention into outpatient palliative emergency medical care, (6) provision of emergency plans and emergency medical boxes, (7) provision of palliative crisis cards and do not attempt resuscitation (DNAR) orders, (8) psychosocial aspects concerning palliative emergencies and (9) definition of palliative patients and their special situation by the physician responsible for prior treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Prehospital emergency physicians are confronted with emergencies in palliative care patients every day. In the treatment of these emergencies there are potentially serious conflicts due to the different therapeutic concepts of palliative medical care and emergency medical services. This study demonstrates that there is a need for regulated criteria for the therapy of palliative patients and patients at the end of life in emergency situations. Overall, more clinical investigations concerning end-of-life care and unresponsive palliative care patients in emergency medical situations are necessary.

[Advance directives in the prehospital setting -- emergency physicians' attitudes]. / Patientenverfügungen in der präklinischen Notfallmedizin: Eine Befragung von Notärzten.

OBJECTIVE: The German physician based emergency medical system (EMS) might confront physicians with advance directives in the field. A multi-question survey was used to evaluate emergency physicians' experience with advance directives in the prehospital setting and to assess their attitudes towards forms and statements of advance directives. METHODS: A questionnaire was mailed to the members of the Association of Emergency Physicians of Northern Germany ("AGNN"), an interest group of emergency physicians, in 2001. RESULTS: 511 emergency physicians (50,4 % of the AGNN members) filled in the questionnaire completely and sent it back for evaluation. 75 % of the participants were working as emergency physicians at present, 72 % had emergency experiences of more than 5 years. One third had previously dealt with advance directives in the prehospital setting. 77 % of these physicians thought advance directives generally helpful. Nevertheless 88 % based their management on the context of the individual circumstances (e. g. emergency conditions, underlying diseases, expected prognosis), only 7 % said they would always exactly follow the statements of the directive. In the view of the emergency physicians the advance directive should contain information on cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR: 88 %), intensive care-treatment (75 %) and preclinical emergency treatment (55 %). Information on underlying diseases (87 %) and a legal substitute (84 %) should be contained as well. As formal requirements, 47 % of the physicians wanted the family doctor to be involved, 49 % desired a notary authenticity confirmation, additionally or solely. Pragmatically, the advance directive should be kept with the personal documents (84 %). A regular reconfirmation was deemed necessary (twice to once a year: 64 %). The current legal situation was regarded as unclear by 81 % of the emergency physicians, 85 % favored a unique, officially authorized type of directive. CONCLUSION: The high number of returned questionnaires shows the importance of the topic "advance directives" for emergency physicians. Despite some practical and legal problems, a big majority of the experienced emergency physicians in this survey thought the advance directives in the prehospital setting to be helpful. A clear statement on resuscitation as well as simplification of the many existing types of directives are the most essential requirements demanded by the emergency physicians. A solution could be the creation of an extra "emergency advance directive".