The number of frail elderly patients living in nursing homes is predicted to quadruple over the next 30 years. More elderly adults are living with multiple medical conditions and co-morbidities that lead to higher number of long-term disabilities, increased use of limited health resources, and poorer quality of life toward end of life. However, palliative care approaches are underused by most health care providers. There is a national need to improve the use of palliative care by developing new health care models for clinicians, training of more palliative care clinicians, and evaluating the use of palliative care in long-term care facilities. This capstone project explored the perceptions of palliative care among clinicians in a private practice by using a Likert-type questionnaire. The objective of this project was developed to enhance clinicians’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to provide effective palliative care to elderly patients.
