End-of-Life Care: Perspectives and Issues

End-of-life care, within critical care, continues to be a controversial topic. Patients who arrive in critical care units tend to suffer from an extensive range of diseases/injuries, and almost always in critical life-threatening condition or after high-risk surgery. This compilation examines issues that are particularly salient to end-of-life care for people living in poverty, particularly homeless individuals. This is a unique perspective in the examination and discussion of end-of-life issues. An out-of-hospital death and dying trend has occurred in most developed countries in recent years, with less than 50% of deaths taking place in acute care hospitals. As such, the authors stress the importance pf recognizing where deaths are occurring, as well as what death in every location means for the dying person.