Geriatric Palliative Care Innovations

In aging societies, the last phase of people's lives changes profoundly, challenging traditional care provision in geriatric medicine and palliative care. Both specialties have to collaborate closely and geriatric palliative care (GPC) should be conceptualized as an interdisciplinary field of care and research based on the synergies of the two and an ethics of care.Major challenges characterizing the emerging field of GPC concern  the development of methodologically creative and ethically sound research to promote evidence-based care and teaching; the promotion of responsible care and treatment decision making in the face of multiple complicating factors related to decisional capacity, communication and behavioural problems, extended disease trajectories and complex social contexts;  the implementation of coordinated, continuous care despite the increasing fragmentation, sectorization and specialization in health care.