Palliative care for older people - World Health Organization ...

palliative care research initiative with a specialfocus on low- and medium-income countries.Many organizations have signed the Declarationof Venice: Palliative Care Research in DevelopingCountries (5) to support this initiative, and the EUhas funded major programmes to foster researchcollaboration across Europe (Boxes 16.1–16.4).• The world’s first purpose-built institute ofpalliative care has been opened at King’s CollegeLondon. The Cicely Saunders Institute wasdesigned with patient and family involvement andseeks to integrate research, education, clinical careand the provision of information and support (6).These and future research initiatives are essentialif palliative care is to continue to evolve.Palliative care streams funded internationally bythe EU and nationally in individual countries areneeded. Given the ageing of the population in theEuropean Region, this should include a focus onmeeting the palliative care needs of older people.Effective collaboration between palliative careand geriatrics along with translational research isneeded to achieve this. Future researchers also needto consider the ability to generalize their findingsand provide the necessary information to assistclinicians, health planners and funders in applyingpalliative care research in real-world settings (2).Box 16.1. European Palliative Research CollaborativeThe European Palliative Research Collaborative (7), consisting of eight participating centres from six Europeancountries, was funded for three years. The aim was to develop novel genetic methods for predicting responsesto opioids, individual variation of cachexia and methods for assessing and classifying pain and cachexia. Theobjectives were: to identify people at particular risk for developing cachexia; to improve the classification andassessment of pain, depression and cachexia; develop an Internet-based system for implementing Europeanevidence-based guidelines; and to develop a long-lasting European collaborative in palliative care cancerresearch.© Catherine Higginson49