Antonio suffers from permanent post-stroke visual impairment which has left him with one-eyed vision. He recently developed a cataract in his healthy eye. Antonio suffers from high blood pressure, atrial fibrillation and a drug-induced metabolic disorder. For the past 10 years he has also suffered from urinary incontinence as a result of prostate cancer, for which he underwent surgery and radiotherapy. Showing no signs of dementia or memory loss, he lives independently, although visual impairment made him decide to give up driving.

Care for the elderly
Antonio is a boomerang patient. Boomerang patients are those patients who, once discharged from the hospital, will have to return within a few days. They are usually elderly people who respond well to medical treatment, but because of economic, cognitive or physical reasons are unable to follow a therapeutic protocol. “Being unable to read a prescription or go to a pharmacy are just two of the trivial reasons why treatment often fails", explains Prof. Bernabei, of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome. He gathered the best international experts in public assistance with the aim of harmonising tailor-made healthcare for the elderly.

Ageing society
The initiative is called SHELTER, an EU-funded project for re-orienting national health systems towards a change of approach in treating patients. “This should become the reference health strategy for the European Union in order to achieve effective and efficient therapeutic goals”, continues Prof. Bernabei. “Lowering costs while ensuring appropriate health services is of paramount importance in an ageing society.”

Complete view
The tool used by Prof. Bernabei and his colleagues is called Minimum Data Set (MDS). This instrument provides a complete view not only of individual pathologies, but also of the lifestyle, social environment and economic constraint of each individual patient.

Everyday life
"Producing health services in series is neither efficient nor effective for medical systems, especially when it comes to providing long-term care for the multi-pathology elderly", concludes Prof. Bernabei. "Instead, we must start taking into account related problems that the elderly have to deal with: not only diseases, but socio-economic, familiar issues as well as cognitive impairment that affect everyday life and therefore medical treatment success."

Read more on the project website of SHELTER.