Anywhere in the world, clinical practice and healthcare systems are never short of challenges. Patients who suffer from two or more coexisting chronic diseases pose a huge challenge for providers as well as healthcare systems. Such individuals are more likely to die prematurely, and have a poor quality of life, despite high health care costs .
A study estimated that one in four elderly individuals suffers from multiple chronic conditions, and the figure for younger adults was in the range of 11–16%. The emergence of multiple diseases was found to occur 10–15 years earlier in deprived people as compared to people from more affluent groups. Such individuals suffer a great deal and it has been estimated that a 78-year-old patient with diabetes of 10 years, osteoarthritis, COPD, ischemic heart disease and smoking would require 11 or more medications and need more than 40 contacts per year…
