Treatment for those with multiple serious illnesses is “ineffective,” warns major review

Medicine is poorly equipped to treat people that develop multiple chronic diseases concurrently, and must commit more resources to improving their treatment, a major global report1 has said.

The report, produced by the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences, warns that multimorbidity is increasing “on a massive scale.” But it admits that nobody knows how massive, for lack of an agreed definition.

The report, which claims to be the first to look at global multimorbidity, attempts to give a definition, as well as suggest new research initiatives to understand it better and work out how best to organise services to treat it.

While having several chronic conditions at once was previously viewed as part of the ageing …