Actitudes de las personas muy mayores ante la atención sanitaria

Abstract

1. Introduction. The population of elderly patients is rapidly expanding therefore the burden on the allocation of healthcare resources is becoming greater. The greatest population increase can be observed in the oldest age group (people 90 years of age or above) which implies that the largest proportion of healthcare resources over the next decades will be dedicated to this group. Care for the vulnerable elderly falls below acceptable levels for a wide variety of reasons. Therefore, we need to reconsider which healthcare services we are delivering to a population with specific characteristics. In order to deal with this problem, we find there is a lack of appropriate information about the oldest old’s wishes and choices for end of life care. Knowledge based on younger persons’ choices may be of limited value for understanding of the end of life needs among the oldest old, yet they are generally excluded from research studies because of assumed troublesome communication. It appears that growing evidence in this approach will work to enhance healthcare for older people, consequently it is becoming urgent to carry out studies which may lead to progress in this field. These reasons justify the completion of our investigation. This study begins with the development of the state of the art, and then continues with the justification of the same and the presentation of objectives and methods used. It then continues with details of the research results in contrast to the literature reviews studied, and finally we deliver the conclusions with their implications on clinical practice...