Palliative care in dementia: a fragmented pathway?

Most deaths occur in people over the age of 65 years, yet there is widespread evidence that older people have inequitable access to good palliative and end-of-life care. For people with dementia, there are further barriers to receiving palliative care. Identifying when older people with dementia are reaching the end of their lives is not straightforward. A palliative approach to care has been recognised as key in UK practice guidance; the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence recommends that, from diagnosis, people living with dementia should be offered flexible, needs-based palliative care that takes into account how unpredictable dementia progression can be. However there are still wide gaps in care in the dementia pathway, largely because commissioning is fragmented.

This paper describes the Admiral Nurse case management approach to palliative care by benchmarking its practice against the European Association of Palliative Care white paper recommendations for palliative care in dementia.