Patients with terminal diseases may experience a combination of physical symptoms like exhaustion due to the condition along with psychosocial symptoms like anxiety and sadness [ 1 ]. Previous studies have shown that multiple concurrent symptoms …

The main goal of palliative care contains relief from pain, support for the patients and their families, concerning offering assistance for psychological, social, and spiritual suffering [ 1 ]. To do so, it is necessary that various stakeholders …

Palliative care is a proven approach for patients and their families facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness to improve quality of life [ 1 ]. In the German health care system, palliative care is provided at different levels of …

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused excessive demands on health care systems in many countries around the world [ 1 – 3 ]. Large numbers of mostly elderly and multi-morbid COVID-19 patients particulary challenged the clinical supply structures in …

Today, palliative care aims to alleviate the consequences of an illness when there is no longer any prospect of a cure [ 1 , 2 ]. While until recently palliative care was classically practiced as a medical discipline in hospitals or hospices, thus …

In Germany, just as in other countries, specialised outpatient palliative care (SOPC) is available for patients with life-limiting diseases and complex needs, who would prefer to receive treatment in an outpatient setting [ 1 ]. Multidisciplinary …

With evolving treatment options in several diseases, prolonged survival at the cost of a more complex end-of-life treatment has been achieved in the recent past. In Germany, the need of adequate palliative care as well as the number of structures …

Palliative care aims at improving the quality of life for seriously and terminally ill people. Patients with advanced neurological diseases frequently require palliative care [ 24 , 31 ], particularly those with neurodegenerative diseases due to a …

In palliative care, patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), patient-centered outcome measures and caregiver-reported outcome measures enable patients’ and families’ needs to be recognized and addressed [ 1 ]. Evidence that their use improves …

Due to sociodemographic changes, the number of old and very old people is rising worldwide. In Germany, the absolute number of residents aged 80 years and older is expected to reach 10.5 million in 2050 (Statistisches Bundesamt 2019 ). This …

Radiotherapy (RT) is one of the principal oncological treatments, and about half of all RT have been delivered with a palliative intent to control or prevent cancer symptoms [ 1 ]. With the improvements in cancer care and the development of high …

Corresponding to the Federal Statistical Office about 1% of the population in Germany dies within a year [ 1 ] and studies as well as the German Association for Palliative Medicine (DGP) estimate that about 90% of these require some level of …

Advanced cancer patients should be offered palliative care treatment in a timely manner in combination with oncological cancer therapy [ 1 – 4 ]. Multiple studies have shown that integration of any modality of palliative care improves various …

Patients with life-threatening illness often suffer from reduced quality of life (QOL) and multiple symptoms, such as pain, fatigue, and dyspnoea, related to their illness and/or its treatment [ 1 , 2 ]. Ideally, these patients should receive …

Emergency departments are frequently visited by severely ill patients approaching the end of life; in a study of older adults who died between 1992 and 2006, 75% visited the emergency department during the last six months of life [ 1 ]. Although …

Palliative care is a patient-centred, transcultural and holistic approach that is essential to address the patient as a whole. In order to understand the multifaceted experience of suffering, Cicely Saunders developed the concept of total pain …