[Geriatric patients in intensive care medicine. Ethical aspects]

Due to demographic change and progress in medicine, the percentage of geriatric patients treated in intensive care is continuously increasing. In addition to the acute disease, many of these patients may also have chronic illnesses, multimorbidity, and cognitive limitations. In view of these conditions, it might become questionable whether intensive care treatment is medically and economically justifiable and really in the interest of the patient. From an ethical perspective, age might indeed be a factor to consider when making a decision about initiating or continuing intensive care treatment in an individual case. The denial of access to intensive care, however, cannot be justified by the advanced age of the patient alone. This would display an ethically problematic form of discrimination (ageism).