The Gottingen Palliative Emergency Card The "Yellow Card for Emergency Medical Services"

Actually more and more cancer patients will be treated at home especially at the final stage of their disease. Therefore relatives and nursing set-vices will be confronted with acute emergency situations of these patients. The handling of those acute situations may be out of the relatives' depth. For that reason the prehospital emergency system will be confronted (2.5 % of all emergency calls) with the specific needs of these patients. Emergency Situations of palliative patients at home are more predictable as in other circumstances. Therefore it is possible to get a practicable preparation for those emergency Situations. For this an individual "emergency plan" should be created. The plan may be processed in an emergency situation. Therefore it might be possible to avoid emergency calls, and for the patient it is possible to stay at home. This promotes the quality of life a and the patient's predominant des ire to stay at home after the arrest. An advance directive should be created to show the patient's will. Because of the complexity of an advance directive it is necessary to show the patient's will in emergency cases in a short and quick form. This is one of the reasons for creating a short version like the "Gottingen palliative emergency card". Therefore in acute Situations it is possible to show the patient's will very quick. The patient might get the possibility to stay at home after emergency situation is treated successfully.