Management Considerations in the Care of Elderly Heart Failure Patients in long-term Care Facilities

ABSTRACT: 

Heart failure, a condition that affects up to 20% of older persons residing in long-term care facilities, is an important cause of morbidity, health service utilization and death. Effective and interprofessional heart failure care processes could potentially improve care, outcomes and quality of life and delay decline or hospital admission. This article reviews the clinical aspects of heart failure, and the challenges to the diagnosis and management of this condition in long-term care residents who are frail and are affected by multiple comorbidities.

KEYWORDS:

• diagnosis
• disease management
• elderly
• epidemiology
• frailty
• heart failure
• long-term care
• nursing homes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the University of Waterloo, Schlegel Research Institute for Aging & the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.