Welcome

The Office of Advance Care Planning, Queensland Health hope these modules will support and enhance your practice with increased knowledge, skills and confidence to provide quality end-of-life care for frail older people in your care.

As more Queenslanders are now living longer, they are also living with increasing levels of frailty, requiring increased knowledge and skills in end-of-life care for those caring for this vulnerable population. As this is an emerging field of care and study, some definitions may be useful:

• End-of-life care: care provided to people who are likely to die within the next twelve months, whether that be due to disease burden or frailty. Care services include physical, spiritual, and psycho-social assessment and care delivered by both clinical and ancillary staff. Person-centred, quality end-of-life care may be delivered in all settings and aims to support people and their families in the manner and place of their choice.

• Frailty is defined by the Frail Older Persons Collaborative, Queensland Health as a state of increased vulnerability, associated with, but not limited to, increasing age and disease burden, resulting in adverse health outcomes following a stressor.

• Older People: as defined by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, are those aged 65 and older. In 2016, 65-year-old Australian men were likely to live 20 years and women 22 years longer; with the projected increase in years to double by 2057.