Multidisciplinary palliative care offers clear benefits to patients with cardiovascular disease, particularly when it comes to medication management and goals-of-care conversations.
Palliative care with effective medication management, shared decision making and symptom management can help improve quality of life for heart disease patients, according to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) — “Palliative Pharmacotherapy for Cardiovascular Disease.”
The statement offers guidance for health care providers to integrate palliative methods as part of holistic medication management at all stages of a patient’s illness, the AHA indicated.
This underscores the importance of collaboration between palliative care professionals and other clinical specialties, according to Dr. Andrew Esch, director of palliative care program development at the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC).
“The statement reaffirms that symptom management is important, that collaboration with the cardiologists or the other specialists is important, and talking to patients and figuring out what’s important to them is crucial,” Esch told Palliative Care News. “That is the real significance of it. We’ve had this validation in oncology. Now we’re getting it with cardiology.”
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported. In 2020, heart disease took the lives of nearly 929,000 people nationwide. And by 2030, associated costs are expected to reach $1.8 trillion, according to the CDC.
“Cardiovascular disease” includes a range of illnesses. Coronary heart disease, valvular heart disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension and heart failure are a few examples. These conditions are associated with significantly reduced quality of life, require ongoing treatment, are often progressive and associated with high mortality rates, AHA reported.
Interdisciplinary palliative care can aid patients with these conditions by reducing physical symptoms, managing emotional distress and assisting patients in making health care decisions and setting goals, according to the AHA’s scientific statement.
Involving palliative care clinicians in medication management for heart disease benefits patients.
Future research is needed to determine the best ways to provide effective palliative medication management for patients with advanced heart disease, particularly those from underserved racial and ethnic groups who are less likely to receive palliative care, the AHA indicated in the statement.
“[Palliative care clinicians] need to be good collaborators. We need to be good partners,” Esch said. “One of our strengths in palliative care is our communication skills, and we need to use those to collaborate with the cardiology folks and the primary care folks that are involved with these patients to make sure that the outcomes are as good as they can be.”
