Frail elderly and palliative care

This paper deals with the assessment of suffering in frail elderly end-of-life patients. Our main goal was to determine the factors that cause suffering and the resources the patients may have to cope with such suffering. In addition, we tested a method of assessing the subjective global well-being in this population by asking about the patient's perception of time passing. The study also includes the assessment of the need for information in these elderly patients. Forty patients where assessed using the ESYP form, applied individually. A descriptive analysis of all variables was made and Spearman's correlation coefficient was used to determine whether there was any relation between patients' perception of time passing and their feelings of well-being. Results showed that no single symptom was common to all patients and those symptoms that did appear caused varying degrees of concern to each person. A moderate correlation was found between well-being and the perception of time passing. We observed a discrepancy between the patients' and their families' expressed desire for information about the illness.