What is geriatric medicine?

  • Geriatrics is the field and practice of medicine aimed at treating older adults

  • Usually, those aged 65 and above are considered of geriatric age but this number is flexible

  • A geriatrician is a physician that practices geriatrics and focuses on diagnosing and treating disease in older adults

  • Globally, populations are aging and people are living longer. As such, the field, along with people, is growing and is in great need

  • Geriatrics is a field that is holistic, proactive, and health-team driven

  • Geriatrics focuses on the values and goals of older adults when making decisions about their health

What does geriatric medicine focus on and why is it important?

  • Geriatric medicine is a specialty within the field of internal medicine

  • Family physicians can also specialize in a similar field called “care of the elderly”

  • An easy way to explain what geriatricians do is to consider the “5M” model as follows:

  1. Mind

  • Maintaining mental activity

  • Helping manage dementia

  • Helping treat and prevent delirium

  • Working to evaluate and treat mental health disease

2. Mobility

  • Maintaining the ability to walk and balance

  • Preventing falls and other types of common injuries

3. Medications

  • Reducing medications that are not needed

  • Prescribing treatments exactly for older adult benefit

  • Build awareness of harmful medication side effects

4. Multi-complexity

  • Helping older adults manage different health conditions especially as diseases overlap

  • Assessing long-term (chronic) diseases when they are impacted by age, health conditions, and social concerns

5. Matters Most

  • Coordinating advance care planning

  • Helping manage goals of care

  • Educate and inform about end of life

  • Making sure their meaningful health outcomes, values, and preferences are reflected in the treatment

When should I look into seeing a geriatrician or care of the elderly? Who should be referred?

  • Concerns for complex and lifelong diseases

  • Complex and many medications

  • Thinking (cognitive) impairment such as dementia

  • Concerns for mood and mental illness

  • Falling

  • Frailty

  • Family members and friends are under significant stress as care providers for older adults

References

Marri Tenneti, et al (2017) The Geriatrics 5M's: A New Way of Communicating What We Do. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.