Author: Dr. med. Peter Landendörfer – specialist in general medicine
Accompanying dying patients is as old and as self-evident as the profession of the family doctor itself. For many family doctors, accompanying patients until death is a service gladly performed for people who have often shown them long-standing trust.
In our ageing society, the wish to remain in familiar surroundings for as long as possible and also to be allowed to die there is of the highest importance. The “old family doctor” therefore remains the companion of dying patients.
With the establishment of palliative medicine, the quality of care and support for dying people has changed enormously. The family doctor cannot avoid acquiring the essential knowledge and possibilities of modern palliative medicine. In addition, the needs of the dying person and of the caring relatives must be met equally and appropriately.
A palliative geriatric medicine as a “medicine of the last days of life” does not yet exist, and this creates uncertainty for many family doctors.
The book by Dr. Peter Landendörfer, specialist in general medicine and geriatrician, attempts in a short, precise, concise and yet comprehensive form to address essential aspects of caring for dying older people in the home environment. Particular emphasis is placed on listing the most important medications, including dosage information, which enables quick orientation.
The author discusses ethical and legal aspects in detail; his decades of family-practice experience in long-term care and family medicine are clearly felt, and it is from this perspective that he has written the book.
A special help is the case-oriented presentation of family-doctor end-of-life accompaniment from diagnosis to death. This readable and instructive booklet deserves wide distribution in order to improve palliative-geriatric care by family doctors.
Author: Dr. med. Peter Landendörfer – specialist in general medicine
Paperback: 100 pages
Publisher: Kirchheim + Co.
ISBN 978-3-87409-589-1
