Palliative Care in Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in a hospital serves and cares for critically ill, debilitated, and most sick patients. Despite developments in the field of palliative care and critical care medicine, the role of palliative care in the ICU setting is still not recognized and there is no consensus on the basics of palliative care practice in the ICU. Palliative care is not an alternative to critical care but both specialties go hand in hand as a part of comprehensive care. Worldwide, three models are described for the integration and implementation of palliative care and ICU. These are-1. Integrative model, 2. Consultative model and 3. Mixed model. Palliative care physician has multiple roles in the ICU like communication and surrogate decision making, basic symptom management like pain, end of life care/terminal sedation, and psychological support to intensivists. Integrating palliative care into the ICU curriculum faces many administrative and clinical barriers but it is the need of the hour and should be given a policy-based and administrative push to optimize utilization of ICU resources and give cost-effective quality care to terminally sick patients.