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World J Crit Care Med. Nov 9, 2022; 11(6): 342-348
Published online Nov 9, 2022. doi: 10.5492/wjccm.v11.i6.342
Rationale for integration of palliative care in the medical intensive care: A narrative literature review
Nishkarsh Gupta, Raghav Gupta, Anju Gupta
Nishkarsh Gupta, Department of Anesthesiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi 110029, India
Raghav Gupta, Department of Onco-Anesthesiology and Palliative Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi 110029, India
Anju Gupta, Department of Anesthesiology, Pain Medicine and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi 110029, India
Author contributions: Gupta A contributed equally to this work; Gupta A and Gupta N designed the research study; Gupta N, Gupta A and Gupta R performed the research and drafted the paper; Gupta A and Gupta N edited the manuscript; All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Anju Gupta, MBBS, MD, DNB, Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pain Medicine and Critical Care, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Ansari Nagar, Delhi 110029, India. dranjugupta2009@rediffmail.com
Received: March 10, 2022
Peer-review started: March 10, 2022
First decision: April 13, 2022
Revised: May 1, 2022
Accepted: September 7, 2022
Article in press: September 7, 2022
Published online: November 9, 2022
Processing time: 238 Days and 21.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Critical care and palliative care may seem to be mutually exclusive, but the amalgamation of the two provides the best combination of care to the patients needing intensive care. Palliative care has several beneficial roles in intensive care, such as symptom control, end-of-life discussions, and providing psychological support to patients’ caregivers. However, there are several barriers to its implementation. These can be overcome by education and awareness improvement, capacity building, and developing a national-level framework policy for incorporating palliative care with intensive care.