Therapeutische Umschau. Revue thérapeutique
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Many patients with advanced diseases complain about refractory breathlessness when breathlessness is present although the underlying disease is optimal treated. After exclusion of potential curable causes of breathlessness, management of refractory breathlessness includes general approaches, pharmacological (opioids) and non-pharmacological (e.g. handheld fan, rollator) interventions. Oxygen should be used far less than used in clinical practice at the moment and needs critical appraisal of effectiveness.
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Palliative care and geriatrics share many ideas and concepts: both intend to imporve quality of life, both focus on more than the physical domain, and both work in a multiprofessional team. More and more the elderly person attracts notice by palliative care. In multimorbid geriatric patients intentions to cure and to care go alongside sometimes over years in a fragile equilibrium and with uncertain prognosis. Therefore principals of palliative care and geriatrics meet at its best in these patients: improving function plays a major role in any symptom management; how to deal with cognitively impaired patients can be learned from geriatrics; various approaches from curative, palliative and rehabilitative often go hand in hand; decision making is a permanent and sophisticated task in all patients due to prognosis and multimorbidity.