Launch of Interdisciplinary End-of-Life Research Program

In France, as in most developed countries, the end of life raises major issues in terms of autonomy, dignity and care, and raises more general questions about the meaning and value of this experience.
The End-of-Life concerns the elderly or the very old (85% of deaths occur after the age of 60), but also sick individuals, including children. In recent decades, demographic change and medical advances have led to an increase in the number of End-of-Life situations. While most End-of-Life cases are institutionalized or hospitalized, major inequalities in access to palliative care persist.
Against this backdrop, we are witnessing the emergence of a new kind of palliative care Against this backdrop, we are witnessing an anthropological transformation in the perception of death and the End-of-Life experience. An adequate understanding of the reconfigurations of our relationship to death and the end of life is necessary, as is a reflection on the forms of accompaniment, improvement and relevance of medical care.

The End-of-Life experience is often marked by suffering. While much progress has been made in understanding and managing pain, people at the end of life generally express psychic or existential suffering linked to certain losses of capacity (to perform daily gestures or take part in activities that are important to them) as well as feelings of failure, abandonment and isolation linked to the impossibility of recovery. This vulnerability accompanied by sensations of inevitable and irreversible deterioration towards death can prompt requests to hasten death.

The anticipation of End-of-Life situations, with the implementation of early palliative care, improves the quality of life of the people concerned and their loved ones while reducing the medico-economic cost of their care. A number of mechanisms (advance directives, trusted support person) also enable citizens to preserve their autonomy of decision for as long as possible. Even so, death and the end of life remain difficult subjects to anticipate. This uncertainty also weighs heavily on healthcare professionals, who have to accompany complex trajectories while taking into account organizational, ethical and emotional constraints.
The aim is therefore to understand why this is so The aim is therefore to understand why these difficulties persist and to propose innovative ways of better adapting these trajectories, both for patients and their loved ones and for caregivers.