[News]Checklist devised to spot elderly patients most at risk of death — ScienceDaily

Checklist devised to spot elderly patients most at risk of death — ScienceDaily.

English: An elderly patient at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Excerpt

Date:January 22, 2015

Source:BMJ-British Medical Journal

Summary:A checklist has been designed to spot elderly hospital patients likely to die within the next three months, a new article outlines. The researchers emphasize that the checklist is not intended to substitute healthcare for the elderly who are terminally ill. Instead, it is meant to “provide an objective assessment and definition of the dying patient as a starting point for honest communication with patients and families about recognizing that dying is part of the life cycle.”

From the journal article

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As Our Parents Age So Do We

When a person is approaching the end of life, we can find no easy answers, no solution that fits every person’s or family’s situation, even when they know a lot about the options available to them.

To illustrate this you will want to read For Hospice Pioneer, Still a Tough Call, by Paula Span at the New York Times New Old Age Blog. She describes the end-of-life period for Paul Brenner, age 73, who spend years organizing and leading hospice organizations around the country. Despite all of this experience, it was still challenging for Mr. Brenner and for his family to engage with hospice.

Over and over I hear from friends and acquaintances how a loved one uses hospice for the last several days or perhaps a week at the end of life, and I am sometimes puzzled about how difficult it seems to be to decide to…

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