Aging, Fragility and Palliative Care: Challenges of an Emerging Context

Abstract

Background: It is common, the difficulty among health professionals to recognize the frailty syndrome, multisystemic disease responsible for the physical, cognitive and functional weakness of the elderly. The undervaluation of the general state of the elderly in the clinical routine and the lack of an accurate identification tool result in a late diagnosis. Thus, frail elderly people are subjected to aggressive and nonbeneficial interventions that impair the remaining quality of life due to the suffering caused by iatrogeny. Objective: To study the application of palliative care in the approach to this nonmalignant but life-limiting syndrome, emphasizing the importance of the systematic evaluation of the fragile elderly and the main tools to do so. Conclusion: Although there is no ''gold standard'' tool in the evaluation of the elderly's fragility, palliative care promotes, through various analytical methods, the survival of the elderly patient, preserving not only their physical integrity, but also their cognitive, emotional, spiritual values and social insertion.