Integrating Quality Palliative and End-of-Life Care into the Geriatric Assessment: Opportunities and Challenges

This article provides an overview of how integrating quality palliative and end-of-life care into geriatric assessment can be a tremendous benefit to older adult patients and their families. Although the quality of palliative and end-of-life care for older adults has improved greatly, there are still many opportunities to improve the quality of life and function for older adult patients in the last few years of their life. More clinical expertise in comprehensive palliative and end-of-life care must be developed and maintained. There also must be greater focus and more direct reimbursement developed for physicians and health system providers.