Palliative care and its impact on the quality of life in heart failure patients

Abstract

Congestive heart failure is an important part of global morbidity and mortality. These patients lose quality of life considerably, particularly due to the unpredictable path of the disease. Palliative care represents an opportunity to improve symptom control and prevent hospital readmissions, especially in the advanced stages of the disease (New York Heart Association III-IV). The objective of this revision is to determine the influence of palliative care on the quality of life of patients with heart failure in advanced disease, since it has been shown that they suffer multiple hospitalizations in the last year of life. In general, patients with this failure receive less palliative care than oncology patients, and when they receive it, they do so with less functionality (p <0,001). Implementing palliative care increases quality of life (p =0,03) decreases depression (p =0,02), anxiety (p =0,048) the frequency of hospital readmissions compared to usual management, 33,63 % vs. 61 %, emergency visits, 35,0 % vs. 60,0 %. Multiple evidences indicate that mortality is not influenced (p >0,19, p >0,22). According to the corresponding medical bibliography, it is concluded that palliative care must be implemented from the diagnosis of this pathology, since it offers a better quality of life, especially in advanced disease.