Decisions to admit older, frail patients to critical care must pay particular attention to quality of life and the potential burden of care on patients. This burden may extend beyond surviving a critical illness. These decisions are not easy and require careful thought, clinical judgment, and communication.
Critical care that enables survival “sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”1 can go against the wishes of patients and their families, often incurring significant use of health and social care resources and informal care costs. As the UK’s demographics shift, with more older people living with multiple comorbidities or frailty, the public should be aware of the advantages and disadvantages of intensive care. We must consider what people really want from medical interventions towards the final stage of their lives.
People aged over 80 currently represent one in seven intensive care admissions in the UK.2 In this age cohort the balance of considering quality of life over quantity …