Living well until you die: quality of care and quality of life in palliative and dementia care

Abstract

The incidence and prevalence of dementia across the world is increasing, carrying crucial implications for the discourse about healthy aging and longevity. For such a discourse to progress, it must engage with the challenge of dementia. If we live into our 80s, then every fifth one of us will have dementia. Of the four who do not, another one is likely to be sharing their life with someone who does. Existing care regimes have failed to consistently act upon best practice in dementia care. That best practice can be pursued via mutual learning between palliative care and person-centered dementia care. Even with cognitive disability and life-limiting illness, it is possible to live well, and it should be an imperative that people be supported to have a better quality of life than they do now. Implementing evidence-based best practice is not enough--it is also necessary to engage with social attitudes toward dementia. Otherwise there is the danger that a significant proportion of older people will be marginalized from a newly emerging ontology of old age.