The AFFIRMO project had its Kick-off meeting on May 2021, 17^th involving around 60 people from all around Europe.

The project is proposing a new study tackling the issues related to elderly patient with Multimorbidity including Atrial Fibrillation. Multimorbidity is a common condition in older age and can substantially influence people’s health and quality of life, making management more difficult. Meanwhile, AF is the most common heart rhythm disorder with 1 in 4 adults at risk of developing it in their lifetime and is associated with a higher risk of stroke, death, dementia and heart failure. 

The main approach underpinning AFFIRMO is to identify older patients with multimorbidity (including AF), assess their individual needs, and deliver a holistic integrated approach to their care that takes account of personal preferences for treatment and considers the social context.

Professor Søren Paaske Johnsen (Principal Investigator) from the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aalborg University said: “We understand and treat patients better if we look at them from a holistic perspective and see them as human beings with coherent systems of diseases. Otherwise, we simply miss the big picture”. There is need to focus on the patient’s individual situation and actively involve him in the decision-making process. “That is the great challenge we will address with this project”, concluded Professor Johnsen.

Professor Gregory Lip  (co-Principal Investigator) from the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom said: “Multimorbidity is common in our ageing population, and taking patients with atrial fibrillation (‘AF’) as an example, outcomes are worse with this common heart rhythm problem if multimorbidity is present.  The AFFIRMO project will investigate if a holistic or integrated approach to AF management based on the ABC (Atrial fibrillation Better Care) pathway will improve clinical outcomes in AF patients with multimorbidity.

The five-year AFFIRMO project is being carried out by a multidisciplinary consortium of 20 partners from 9 countries - researchers and clinicians from across Europe representing all research field essential for the success of this project: clinical research, epidemiology, data science, biostatistics, pharmacology, economics, psychology and social sciences.