title: Palliative medicine and geriatric emergency care: challenges, opportunities, and basic principles.
abstract: Patients with serious or life-threatening illness are likely to find themselves in an emergency department at some point along their trajectory of illness, and they should expect to receive high-quality palliative care in that setting. Recently, emergency medicine has increasingly taken a central role in the early implementation of palliative care. This article presents an overview of palliative care in the emergency department and describes commonly encountered palliative emergencies, strategies for acute symptom management, communication strategies, and issues related to optimal use of hospice service in the emergency department.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, St Joseph's Regional Medical Center, Paterson, NJ 07503, USA. rosenbem@sjhmc.org
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rosenberg
authors.forename: Sangeeta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lamba
authors.forename: Sumi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Misra
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005853:Geriatrics; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D017051:Hospice Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D012720:Severity of Illness Index