Palliative care, according to the World Health Organisation, is aimed at meeting the physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs of patients with diseases that endanger their lives and that also affect their families. These care aims to improve the quality of life, along with other therapies to prolong it. Until now, this type of treatment has been developed mainly in cancer patients in whom it has produced beneficial effects on their quality of life, the intensity of symptoms, lower levels of depression and anxiety, and a better perception of the disease.

InAdvance (patient-centred pathways of early palliative care, supportive ecosystems and appraisal standard) aims to reinforce the integration of early palliative care in the daily clinical routine aimed at elderly people with chronic non-cancerous diseases in advanced stages so that they can benefit from this approach of attention to the same extent as people with cancer.

According to Jordi Garcés, director of Polibienestar, for decades in Europe “there has been a progressive aging of the population and an increase in life expectancy, which means that the proportion of people aged 80 or more will be more than doubled between 2016 and 2080 in the EU”. For its part, Ascensión Doñate highlights a higher prevalence of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular problems, cancer, diabetes and dementia, which are the most common and the leading cause of death in older people. “Therefore, the need for palliative care services is a challenge for health care systems”, she concludes.

This study was born to implement new patient-centred approaches aimed at survival, palliation and attention at the end of life. The project will last four years from its beginning last January. The consortium will develop five clinical trials in Valencia, Thessaloniki (Greece), Lisbon (Portugal), Leeds and Inverness (United Kingdom), in which patients and their families will participate, as well as their informal and professional caregivers.