DOES ADVANCED AGE IMPLY A WORSE PROGNOSIS FOR INTENSIVE-CARE PATIENTS

Limited resources in intensive care medicine keep raising the question of whether intensive Care can be made available to all patients witho ut restriction, Elder patients are often subjectively ascribed a worse prognosis without objectifying this decision with relevant data. A pr ospective data acquisition on a postoperative intensive care unit was undertaken to investigate whether age is a special risk factor in inte nsive care medicine. The results of the present study demonstrate that a higher age does not go along with a worse prognosis and that every effort towards an optimized intensive care is justified without restri ction.