Services Offered

Patient tailored treatment is one of the major objectives of geriatric medicine. The Department of Geriatrics of the Ghent University Hospital has developed a research unit concerned with tailored care in frail older persons.

Our research unit studies assessment and management of pain and other discomfort and spiritual concerns of frail older persons. Other topics of interest are patient-centered ACP conversations; inter-professional collaboration and ethical climate as means to improve end of life decision-making in frail persons.

SPICT Uses

Decisions to limit therapies or TLDs (treatment limitation decisions) in older persons are taken too little and too late, leading to too aggressive care at the end-of-life. Focusing on life-prolongation and aggressive treatments may be not beneficial and even harmful for patients and their families who wish to prepare for death and dying. SPICT may help clinicians to overcome prognostic paralysis.

By means of a multicenter prospective observational study (2017-2020) in older persons hospitalized in 4 hospitals we will address following research questions:

1. ‘Is SPICT an accurate tool to identify the older person with poor prospects (aiming at a very high sensitivity and a moderate to high specificity to predict 12 months mortality)?
2. Is SPICT needed in order to improve TLD decision-making? Is the association between TLD and SPICT score different in geriatric wards compared to older persons in non-geriatric wards?’