Trajectories of End of Life: A Systematic Review

Jiska Cohen-Mansfield, Michal Skornick-Bouchbinder and Shai BrillMD

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2018, vol. 73, issue 4, 564-572

Abstract: ObjectivesBecause End of life (EOL) is becoming an increasingly long life stage, this paper aims to describe the delineation of EOL by reviewing studies which examine (a) terminal decline (TD), the timing of change in slope of decline in specific abilities; and (b) trajectories of decline in areas such as function, health care expenditures, and well-being according to cause of death.MethodsStudies were identified through Google Scholar, PsycNET, and PubMed.ResultsTD was identified in diverse domains. Most findings focused on decline of cognitive abilities, and they reported this to occur 3–7 years prior to death. TD in wellbeing was found to begin 3–5 years prior to death. Trajectories by cause of death generally examined sudden death, terminal illness, organ failure, and frailty, and findings described differences in costs, function, and wellbeing, though examining a shorter predeath period than the TD literature.DiscussionFurther research is needed to combine methods of investigation in order to assist the health care system in personalizing services to the trajectories of decline, and in enabling caregivers to prepare for the EOL experience.

Keywords: Cause of Death; End of Life; Terminal Decline; Trajectories (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbx093 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:73:y:2018:i:4:p:564-572.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().