Indicators for comfort care: Adult and child

In the following circumstances, comfort care must be offered to patients and families as an option:

• persistent vegetative state;

• minimal cognitive function that is irreversible;

• burdens of cure-oriented treatment are greater to the patient than the medical benefits;

• irreversible and irreparable (multi)organ failure;

• imminent demise

In the following circumstances, comfort care may be the most appropriate option:

• conditions for which life expectancy is severely limited even with aggressive therapy;

• conditions for which cognition may reasonably be expected to be absent or profoundly limited;

• conditions for which morbidity is so great and care is so extremely burdensome to the patient that quality of life is severely impaired.

(Editor’s note: This information was taken from Community Recommendations for Appropriate, Humane Medical Care for Dying or Irreversibly Ill Patients, Extreme Care, Humane Options, California; January 1997.)