Dados do Trabalho

Título

Availability and access of palliative care in elderly with Alzheimer's disease in the public health system: A review of the literature

Resumo

Introduction: Dementia syndromes are among the leading causes of death and have similar symptom control challenges as cancer patients. However, dementias tend to receive less attention in palliative care planning. According to the Brazilian Alzheimer's Association (ABRAZ, 2010), there are approximately 1.2 million elderly people with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). AD is characterized by a prolonged course of progressive disabilities that bring a significant responsibility to the public health system and families .Aims: Describe the availability and access of palliative care for elderly Alzheimer's patients using the SUS(Brazilian Unic health system).Methods: A literature review was developed in three steps: Development of the research question, search for scientific articles in the Pubmed database, and critical analysis of included articles. The search was conducted in March 2022, and articles between 2012 and 2022 were selected, for a total of 30 articles, of which 8 were used. Results: AD is one of the types of dementia that received the worst quality of end-of-life medical care. It is noted that it is not established as a routine of care in this group of patients even though the recognition of terminality is proposed as a fundamental prerequisite for better end-of-life care in demented patients. Effective care management for demented patients can be provided from specialized centers to complement usual care and mitigate the growing social and economic burden of dementia. Although, it is not recognized as a protocol within the healthcare system that provides outpatient care as well as, there is no unit and facility to which patients and their families can be referred for support and better care planning. Conclusion: Neuropaliative care should be available on the public health system(SUS) and offered to all patients who need it, regardless of diagnosis, in order to screen for psychosocial factors that worsen the disease in addition to promote better symptom control and recognize caregiver exhaustion.

Palavras Chave

Aged patient, Alzheimer's Disease, palliative care, public health care