End-of-Life Patient Identification Assistance in Acute GEriatric Medicine

Overview

The main objective of this project is to build a tool, adapted to the French geriatric population, that will predict the risk of death at three months after hospitalization in acute geriatric medicine. This tool will be built using selected items via a review of the literature published in 2015. The 8 items of the CriSTAL tool will be collected prospectively in all patients hospitalized successively in the 2 post-emergency geriatric services (PUG) of the University Hospital of Toulouse, over a period of 9 months, by a dedicated clinical research associate. Patient survival will be assessed by obtaining the vital status of the cohort via CépiDC

As the population ages, the prevalence of chronic diseases increases. Let's take the example of cardiovascular, respiratory or neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease. These pathologies are at the origin of decompensations requiring sometimes multiple hospitalizations. It is clear that the goals of care (curative or palliative) are not always related to life expectancy. Decision making, especially in an acute context, is often tricky. The use of a tool with certain parameters of the patient could help to guide the reflection. The present study propose a tool proposed by an Australian team (CriSTAL), which lists items described in the literature as a risk factor for the death of elderly patients. This tool is currently being studied in several types of populations around the world (general population, cancer patients, hospitalized etc.). This is a prospective study aimed at evaluating routine, single-center care, conducted at Toulouse University Hospital. The successive inclusion of hospitalized patients in Post Emergencies Geriatric (PUG) unity will be carried out over a period of 9 months. The primary outcome will be the vital status (alive / deceased) at 3 months of hospitalization in acute geriatric medicine.

Conditions