Implementation of Knowledge-Based Palliative Care

The research on ageing during the last couple of decades has increasingly focused on questions regarding the quality of life and life satisfaction of the old people. Yet the research indicates that when it comes to the final stage of life, the end includes unnecessary suffering and the quality of life drops. Palliative care has traditionally been provided successfully to younger persons dying from incurable illnesses while older people dying of multiple morbidities or "old age" has received far less of this type of care. However, sixty percent of all people who died in Sweden in 2010 were at least 80 years old and it is well known that dying among older people often is a prolonged period of suffering. One reason might be that it is more difficult to identify when the final stages of life begins for older persons. The purpose of this project is to implement and evaluate how a knowledge-based model for palliative care in nursing homes affects the quality of life and the participation in the care process for older persons in nursing homes and their next of kin. A second aim is to explore the staff's implementation process of palliative care and the role of the leadership. The final aim is to investigate which factors (barriers and facilitators) that affect the implementation process of this model.