End-Of-Life and Palliative Care for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, or Another Diverse Gender Identity Older Adults

Palliative care focuses on improving the quality of life for people with serious illnesses and their loved ones. This article introduces considerations including barriers to care, intersectionality, minority stress, microaggressions, and social safety that may impact the experience and openness of people to receive this care. The authors outline tools to address these challenges including trauma-informed care and how to recognize bias and earn trust. The authors conclude by offering a model for incorporating these assessments and tools with sample scripts to provide patient -centered and holistic palliative care. Though this article focuses on palliative and hospice care for LGBTQ + patients, the themes and tools can be extended to a broader patient population to provide high-quality and inclusive palliative care. When possible, the authors recommend connecting LGBTQ + patients with teams and resources known to support the LGBTQ + community. The use of out lists or tips for finding LGBTQ + affirming care (https://www.lgbtagingcenter.org/resources/resource.cfm?r = 4) can help to ensure appropriate and sensitive care for serious illnesses, end-of-life, and postmortem planning and care.