A systematic review and critical appraisal of quality indicators to assess optimal palliative care for older people with dementia

A challenge for commissioners and providers of end-of-life care in dementia is to translate recommendations for good or effective care into quality indicators that inform service development and evaluation. To identify and critically evaluate quality indicators for end-of-life care in dementia. We found 8657 references, after de-duplication. In all, 19 publications describing 10 new and 3 updated sets of indicators were included in this review. Ultimately, 246 individual indicators were identified as being relevant to dementia end-of-life care and mapped against EAPC guidelines. We systematically derived and assessed a set of quality indicators using a robust framework that provides clear definitions of aspects of palliative care, which are dementia specific, and strengthens the theoretical underpinning of new complex interventions in end-of-life care in dementia