Palliative Care for the Elderly With Heart Diseases in Tertiary Health care: A Concept Analysis.
Sana Ali, Jane Tyerman
PMID 37963548WHAT IT FOUND
Palliative care for elderly heart failure patients is often delayed until end-of-life, missing the opportunity to improve symptom control and quality of life earlier in the disease trajectory.
Nurses and teams should integrate palliative care alongside cardiac treatment from diagnosis.
Key findings
01Palliative care referrals for older heart failure patients are low and often occur only in the final hours of life.
02Early integration of palliative care alongside conventional therapies improves symptom control, quality of life, and patient satisfaction.
03Barriers to early palliative care include prognostic uncertainty, lack of knowledge among nurses, and misconceptions that palliative care means stopping curative treatment.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This is a concept analysis, not a clinical trial or systematic review of interventions, so it does not measure the effectiveness of specific nursing protocols. The search was limited to English-language articles published between 2011 and 2021. The findings are based on literature from North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, which may not generalize to all healthcare systems.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and received no financial support for the research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret this concept analysis as evidence that specific palliative care interventions have been proven to reduce mortality or improve clinical outcomes in a randomized trial setting. It defines the components of good practice but does not test them.