1,721,181 research outputs found
Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment
No full textThe CGA is a multidisciplinary diagnostic and treatment process that identifies medical, psychosocial, and functional capabilities of older adults in order to develop a coordinated plan to maximize overall health with aging. At present, no
standard criteria are available to readily identify patients who are likely to benefit from the CGA. Specific criteria used by CGA programs to evaluate patients include age, medical comorbidities, psychosocial problems, previous or predicted high healthcare utilization, change in living situation, and specific geriatric conditions. Evidence coming from RCTs and large systematic reviews and meta-analyses suggests that the healthcare setting may influence the effectiveness of CGA programs. Home CGA programs as well as the CGA performed in hospital have been shown to be consistently beneficial for several health outcomes. The effectiveness of CGA programs may be modified also by particular settings or specific clinical conditions, with tailored CGA programs in older frail patients evaluated for preoperative assessment, admitted or discharged from emergency departments and orthogeriatric units or with cognitive impairment and dementia. The CGA, capable to effectively exploring multiple domains in older age, is indeed the multidimensional and multidisciplinary tool of choice to determine the clinical profile, the pathological risk and the residual skills, as well as the shortand long-term prognosis, i.e., the Multidimensional Prognostic Index (MPI), to facilitate the clinical decision making on the personalized care plan of older subjects
Drug use and upper gastrointestinal tract in the elderly: An epidemiological survey of general practitioners
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Bio-Technologies to Understand Aging, Frailty, and Resilience
No full textBiotechnologies applied in gerontology field, might allow a better understanding of the biological basis of aging and its relationship to disease, to capture also biological mechanisms of frailty and resilience. Mechanisms underlying the aging process might be strictly interconnected with morbidity. Aging is conceptualized as the ratio between damage accumulation, and resilience strategies of maintenance and repair. The age-related unbalance toward the accumulation of molecular damage creates the susceptibility for the emergence of chronic diseases, which take different forms based on heterogeneous genetic background, behaviors, and environmental exposures. Several lines of evidence suggest that aging can be slowed down and perhaps even reversed. The identification and measurement of biomarkers of aging process would not only be useful from diagnostic and prognostic points of view, but also, and above all, from a therapeutic one. In fact, a biomarker could represent a therapeutic target, and, following its trend over time, an indicator of response to therapy. Finding strategies to slowing down biological aging could potentially delay the onset and progression of multiple chronic diseases and functional decline and reduce the burden of multimorbidity. To date more than 200 compounds has been tested as potential rejuvenation strategies. The effectiveness of such approaches on aging trajectories should be verified in the near future
The unavoidable costs of frailty: a geriatric perspective in the time of COVID-19
Full text linkThe world is facing specchless one of the the most feared greatest catastrophes for human being. Despite better healthcare, despite warnings through similar situations and even documented threats, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it found us largely unprepared. It offered to us on a silver tray the fragility of mankind. And one again, but this time is particularly over-whelming way, the most vulnerable part of the world population is mowed down: older person
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