The InAdvance project has been granted almost €4.2 million in funding by the Horizon 2020 programme under the action “Novel patient-centered approaches for survivorship, palliation and / or end-of-life care”. The research project kicked off on 7 and 8 February 2019 in Valencia where all partners planned the working programme for the next 6 months.
InAdvance (Patient-centred pathways of early palliative care, supportive ecosystems and appraisal standard) is a 4-year project and aims to develop and implement effective intervention programmes for early palliative care that respond to the needs of older people with chronic diseases. The interventions must be sustainable over time and replicable in different cultural contexts and in different healthcare paths. At the same time the project aims to address the major European concern in reducing the socio-economic impact of chronic diseases.
According to Professor Jorge Garcés Ferrer, leader of the Research Institute on Social Welfare Policy (Polibienestar) at the University of Valencia: “Population ageing is a long-term trend in Europe since decades ago. Its impact is visible in an increasing share of older persons coupled with a declining share of working-age persons in the total population. The rate of 65 years old or above population increased by 2.4% percentage points in the European Union since 2006 to 2016. Moreover, there is a progressive ageing of the older population itself; meaning the share of those aged 80 years or above is projected to more than double between 2016 and 2080 in the EU.”
“Chronic conditions do not only affect older people, but its prevalence is much higher in older age groups; in this sense, 65% of people aged 65-84 years and 82% of people aged at least 85 years are affected by multiple co-morbidities. Cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and dementia are the most common chronic conditions in older people and are the major cause of death worldwide in general population. Thus, the need of palliative care services is being a challenge for health care systems,” said Ascensión Doñate-Martínez.
InAdvance applies the World Health Organization definition of palliative care aimed to address patients’ and their families’ physical, psychosocial, social and spiritual needs related to life-threatening illnesses and highlighting quality of life of as its ultimate goal. This definition also recognises the integration of early palliative care in the course of illness and in conjunction with other therapies that are intended to prolong life. Experiences of early palliative care have been developed mostly around oncological patients with beneficial effects on quality of life, symptom intensity, less levels of depression and anxiety, better satisfaction with quality of care, improved illness perception or advanced care planning among other benefits. In this sense, InAdvance project will reinforce the integration of early palliative care in the daily clinical routine addressed to older patients with non-cancer complex chronic conditions towards advanced stages in order they can be beneficiaries of this new care approach in the same extent than as cancer-patients.
The project partners gathered in Valencia beginning of February 2019 to start the project and to set the course of the project straight from the beginning. The consortium consists of eleven partners from 7 different countries in Europe. The partners from academia and research are University of Valencia (Spain), Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), University of Leeds (UK), and Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam (The Netherlands). There are also three healthcare providers IIS La Fe Hospital (Spain), Santa Casa da Misericordia da Amadora (Portugal) and NHS Highland (UK), two technical SMEs Salumedia (Spain) and Nively (France), and one non-profit organization working on older people rights at European level – AGE Platform Europe (Belgium). The project is coordinated by University of Valencia together with Professor Jorge Garcés Ferrer and researcher Ascensión Doñate Martínez.
Follow the project on the Internet www.inadvanceproject.eu , on Twitter @InAdvance_eu , and get the latest news on the project by subscribing to the newsletter through the website.
