The way we think about health and health care is changing. Two factors driving this change are that we recognise the importance of the social consequences of disease and secondly, we acknowledge that health care aims to increase both the quantity and quality of survival. For these reasons, health care focusses more and more on 'quality of life'.
Measuring quality of life brings many challenges. What do we mean by 'quality of life'? Who should measure it? How can we measure it? What can we use the information for?
This book provides an accessible but up to date and authoritative overview of the measurement of quality of life in health care. It brings together the work of authors from Medicine, Palliative Care, Nursing, Ethics, Dentistry, Assistive Technology, Sociology, Epidemiology and Statistics.