Click on the book chapter title to read more.

Hip fractures are among the most serious health events in older adults, frequently leading to disability, loss of independence, and elevated mortality. In 2019, an estimated 9.6 million new cases occurred globally among adults aged ≥ 55 years, with an incidence rate of 681 per 100,000. Despite improved surgical care, one-year mortality remains high (15–30%), and fewer than half of survivors regain their pre-fracture functional status. Traditionally regarded as mechanical injuries, hip fractures are now increasingly recognized as systemic events reflecting and accelerating biological vulnerability and frailty progression. We synthesize evidence across biological, clinical, and social domains to explore the systemic implications of hip fracture, from the acute catabolic response and immune dysfunction to long-term functional decline. The concept of intrinsic capacity, introduced by the World Health Organization, offers a resilience-based framework to assess the multidimensional impact of hip fracture on physical, cognitive, and psychological function. We highlight the importance of orthogeriatric co-management, early surgical intervention, and integrated rehabilitation strategies tailored to the individual’s functional reserves and personal goals. Innovations such as digital health tools, biological aging biomarkers, and personalized surgical approaches represent promising avenues to enhance recovery and autonomy. Ultimately, we advocate for a shift toward interdisciplinary, capacity-oriented models of care that align with the goals of healthy aging and enable recovery that transcends survival, focusing instead on restoring function and quality of life.

Pediatric palliative care (PPC) is different from palliative care (PC) for adults. However, conceptualizing PPC remains cumbersome due to the high heterogeneity of often rare diseases, the high diversity of disease trajectories, and the particular difficulty to predict the future of an individual, severely ill child. This article aims to provide an overview and critical reflection of different aspects of prognostication in children with PC needs. This includes different diseases from neurology to oncology, from the unborn baby to the young adult, new approaches in treatment, advance care planning, and, most important, communication with the affected child as well as parents.

To identify possible effects of an interprofessional breaking bad news course for medical and nursing students on perceived key communication skills and to elicit the views of participants on interprofessional aspects of breaking bad news. Medical and nursing students attending an optional course on breaking bad news received a structured questionnaire on self-perceived communication skills and views on interprofessional aspects at the beginning and end of the course. Forty-seven out of 54 students completed the evaluation questionnaires (response rate=87%). Medical students and nursing students rated their key communication skills after the course as significantly better compared with the beginning of the course. Medical students and nursing students disagreed with the statement that a course format for only one of the professional groups would have been more effective than the interprofessional course concept. Students valued the concept of the interprofessional course positively. The improvement of self-perceived communication skills may be interpreted as a positive effect of the teaching session. Further research is necessary to develop strategies to implement a collaborative approach in breaking bad news in clinical practice.

The prevalence of urinary incontinence (UI) is strongly associated with increasing age. Twenty five percent of women over 80 years of age have clinically significant symptoms in population surveys, but prevalence is as high as 70% in older hospital in-patients and residents of care homes with nursing. UI substantially affects quality of life and well-being, and generates significant economic burden for health and social care. Sadly, UI is considered as taboo by society, leading to isolation, depression and reluctance to seek help. As with all aspects of care of older people, a multi-modal approach to assessment and management is needed. Key to effective management of incontinence is recognition. As a minimum, clinicians should actively ask patients about continence, especially in older adults living with frailty. Careful evaluation and establishment of any underpinning diagnosis and aetiological factors requires comprehensive, multimodal, usually multidisciplinary, assessment. A lack of awareness of the problem and what can be done about it exists in both laypeople and clinicians, this needs correcting. An interdisciplinary approach to research and management must be the way into the future.