Rapidly advancing demographic aging in China has led to an increasing prevalence of terminal patients suffering from malignant tumors and chronic diseases, thereby escalating the demand for palliative care services. Palliative care is a multidisciplinary comprehensive management model for patients in the terminal stage and at the end of life. It aims to effectively alleviate the patients' painful symptoms, improve their quality of life, and ensure their comfortable and dignified departure. Symptom control is at the core of palliative care, and rational drug use is the foundation of symptom control. The complexity of physical and psychological factors in terminal patients and the ethical background pose significant challenges to rational drug use. In addition, elderly hospice patients usually suffer from multiple diseases, and their physiological functions decline, resulting in specific pharmacokinetics and reactivity, which undoubtedly increases the complexity of medical decision-making, making doctors often face multiple medication challenges during the treatment process, which in turn poses potential drug treatment risks. Based on current evidence, a multidisciplinary team led by geriatricians registered and drafted the "Protocol for medication guideline for symptom management in elderly hospice care (2025)". This paper provides a detailed introduction to the planning process for the development of the guidelines.
Older patients at the end of life often present with multiple geriatric syndromes and comorbidities, resulting in complex symptom profiles and a high risk of medication-related harm. These challenges not only compromise quality of life at the end of life but also complicate clinical decision-making. Currently, there is a lack of systematic, age-specific guidelines for medication management of symptoms in older palliative care patients in China. This guideline is developed in accordance with the standards of the grading of recommendations, assessment, development, and evaluations (GRADE) system and the reporting items for practice guidelines in healthcare (RIGHT). It addresses 15 symptoms, including pain, dyspnea, and cough in elderly palliative care patients, resulting in 67 recommendations. Based on the best available evidence, an expert panel conducted structured discussions and formulated recommendations. This guideline aims to identify and recommend appropriate pharmacological treatments for common and refractory symptoms in older palliative care patients, and to provide guidance for healthcare professionals on safe, rational, and standardized medication use.
With the continuous aging of the population in China, the aging of skeletal muscle in the elderly has seriously affected national health and poses a severe challenge to the public health system. Early detection of skeletal muscle aging, and early warning, prevention, and treatment are of great significance for achieving healthy aging. In order to select a series of clinically operable biomarkers for skeletal muscle aging, and to further standardize the early identification and precise diagnosis of skeletal muscle aging, a multidisciplinary team of experts has registered and written this protocol to provide a detailed introduction to the planning process for the development of the consensus.