Current projections indicate that by 2050 the number of people aged over 80 years old will rise to 395 million and that by this date 25-30% of people over the age of 85 will show some degree of cognitive decline. Palliative care for older people: A public health perspective provides a comprehensive account of the current state of palliative care for older people worldwide and illustrates the range of concomitant issues that, as the global population ages, will ever more acutely shape the decisions of policy-makers and care-givers. The book begins by outlining the range of policies towards palliative care for older people that are found worldwide. It follows this by examining an array of socio-cultural issues and palliative care initiatives, from the care implications of health trajectories of older people to the spiritual requirements of palliative care patients, and from the need to encourage compassion towards end-of-life care within communities to the development of care pathways for older people. Palliative care for older people: A public health perspective is a valuable resource for professionals and academics in a range of healthcare and public health fields to understand the current state of policy work from around the world. The book also highlights the social-cultural considerations that influence the difficult decisions that those involved in palliative care face, not least patients themselves, and offers examples of good practice and recommendations to inspire, support, and direct healthcare policy and decision-making at organisational, regional, national and international levels.

Worldwide, more than 50 million people die each year and it is estimated on the basis of the conditions leading to death that up to 60% of them could benefit from some form of palliative care. It is a public health challenge to ensure that these people can access good palliative or end-of-life care. Pursuing good population health essentially also implies striving for a 'good enough death' and a good quality of care at the end of life. Safeguarding a good quality of the end of life for patient populations for whom it is appropriate requires a public health approach. In most developed countries ageing populations that increasingly die from chronic diseases after a prolonged -often degenerative- dying trajectory make up the public health challenges for palliative care. The very large baby boom generation will soon reach old age and can be expected to pose strong demands regarding the circumstances and care at their end of life. Only by applying a public health approach to palliative care (instead of individual patient perspectives), can societies successfully help to organize and plan end-of-life care in accordance with these aspirations. A Public Health Perspective on End of Life Care presents a synthesis and overview of relevant research and empirical data on the end of life that can bear a basis for a more systematic 'public health of the end of life'. The book focuses on population health, rather than clinical interventions or other aspects of individual health, and discusses studies using different methodologies (not only epidemiological research). The focus is on the quality of the end-of-life of populations, in particular from social sciences, environmental sciences, and humanities perspectives.