ll of us, geriatricians and gerontologists, deal with death as an undeniable reality. It is present in our plans and in our patients’ plans, regardless of age, disease, severity, or setting of care. We are used to seeing death approach slowly and then change patients, often detracting from their dignity and producing pain and other symptoms over which there is no control of the will; or rapidly, surprising us by the speed with which it reaps the harvest of life that was entrusted to our care. No matter what, death will eventually ensue.
As health professionals dedicated to caring for older persons, we know when nothing else can be done medically — it is when patients most need our support and knowledge; it is when everything is to be done. We are used to alleviating suffering when no fatal diagnosis has yet appeared on the horizon. However, it is when such sentences come to the forefront that we, geriatricians and gerontologists, are called to do our best. Palliative care is the modern expression of this care that our patients need or will need, organized as systematized knowledge and appropriate protocols. It is our ethical obligation to provide it.
