The Lancet Healthy Longevity Paper: Palliation for the Frail Older Adult and What Meaningful Longevity Could Be
The Lancet Healthy Longevity journal has published a paper in their October Issue, "Palliation for the Frail Older Adult and What Meaningful Longevity Could Be."
The paper - by William E Rosa, Stephen Connor, Betty R Ferrell, Terry Fulmer, Jasmine L Travers and Lukas Radbruch - highlights how palliative care can assist frail older adults to redefine their goals and align how their time is spent with their health-related values.
The authors detail pragmatic steps for all clinicians that include initiating a generalist palliative care approach starting at diagnosis of frailty; consulting specialist palliative care at the onset of dementia for patients with frailty to effectively anticipate end-of-life needs; and implementing systematic prognostication of survival, starting at frailty or dementia diagnosis.
The paper further discusses the importance of understanding the linear progression of frailty in the years before death in order to guide effective and timely palliative care integration.
Read the paper.
Access the current issue.