Person-centred decisions in emergency care for older people living with frailty: principles and practice.

Older people living with frailty are frequent users of emergency care and have multiple and complex problems. Typical evidence-based guidelines and protocols provide guidance for the management of single and simple acute issues. Meanwhile, person-centred care orientates interventions around the perspectives of the individual. Using a case vignette, we illustrate the potential pitfalls of applying exclusively either evidence-based or person-centred care in isolation, as this may trigger inappropriate clinical processes or place undue onus on patients and families. We instead advocate for delivering a combined evidence-based, person-centred approach to healthcare which considers the person's situation and values, apparent problem and available options.

Informations de copyright

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Competing interests: The authors declare holding or having held voluntary leadership roles in geriatric emergency medicine special interest groups in Europe: European Society of Emergency Medicine (JvO, PH, JAL) and European Geriatric Medicine Society (SM, SC); North America: Geriatric Emergency Department Collaborative (DM) and Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SWL, TR); and internationally: International Federation for Emergency Medicine (CH, RM, DM).