Life is worth fighting for -a scooping review focusing life after intensive care from the perspective of older persons 

Background and Aim: The median age of patients admitted to intensive care is above 65 years in many countries. Intensive care contributes to prolonging life for critically ill older persons, but research underscores challenges to return to life as it was before. A scoping review were performed with the aim to determine how Health-Related Quality of Life, recovery and well-being are followed up in persons ≥65 years of age being cared for in an intensive care unit.

Methods: CINAHL, MEDLINE (Ovid) and PsycINFO databases were searched. 20 studies met the inclusion criteria. 

Results: Intensive care is challenging and patients' ≥80 years old admitted to the intensive care unit have a one-year mortality rate of around 60%. However, time seems to be an important factor, and for those surviving, life is perceived as acceptable after 1 year. Studies showed patients' willingness to be readmitted to the intensive care unit if necessary, indicating that life is worth fighting for. 

Conclusion: The result illustrates a lack of qualitative data in which the patients voice is the focus. Instead, the findings consist of quantitative data were the studies applied different tools for measurement. The diversity in study designs impacted the synthetisation of findings and the possibility of gaining a greater understanding of how life is experienced for older persons after intensive care. To better understand the older persons perspective there is a need for qualitative in-depth interview studies.