Can a complex adaptive systems perspective support the resiliency of the heart failure patient – informal caregiver dyad?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: A holistic palliative approach for heart failure care emphasizes supporting nonprofessional informal caregivers. Informal caregivers play a vital role caring for heart failure patients. However, caregiving negatively affects informal caregivers' well being, and in turn heart failure patients' health outcomes. This opinion article proposes that complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory applied to heart failure models of care can support the resiliency of the heart failure patient - informal caregiver dyad. RECENT FINDINGS: Heart failure care is enacted within a complex system composed of patients, their informal caregivers and a variety of health professionals. In a national study, we employed a CAS perspective to explore how all parts of the heart failure team function interdependently in emergent and adaptive ways. Salient in our data were the severe vulnerability of elderly heart failure patients and their long-term partners who suffered from a chronic illness. Novel approaches are needed that can quickly adapt and reorganize care when unpredictable disturbances occur in the couples' functional capacity. SUMMARY: The linear protocol-driven care models that shape heart failure guidelines, training and care delivery initiatives do not adequately capture heart failure patients' social environment. CAS is a powerful theoretical tool that can render visible the most vulnerable members of the heart failure team, and incite robust specialized holistic palliative heart failure care models.