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Palliative cancer care - general issues - Management
How should I assess the person's prognosis?
- Attempt to estimate the person's prognosis and discuss this with them if appropriate.
- Estimating the prognosis helps in the planning of appropriate treatment and care — if prognosis is not discussed, or predictions are inaccurate, people may make inappropriate treatment decisions, or inadequately prepare for death.
- The Prognostic Indicator Guidance (pdf) can be used. It is part of the Gold Standards Framework, which aims to optimize the care of people nearing the end of life who are looked after by primary care teams in the community.
- Some people may request not to know their prognosis. This should be respected and they should be given the opportunity to discuss it again at a later date.
- A discussion of prognosis should involve:
- Identifying the person's own thoughts regarding their prognosis.
- Explaining the difficulty of providing an accurate prognosis.
- Providing a rough estimate only (e.g. days, weeks, months, years).
In depth
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