BACKGROUND Case management is a type of intervention expected to improve the quality of care and therefore the quality of life of frail, community-dwelling older people while delaying institutionalisation in nursing homes. However, the heterogeneity, multidimensionality and complexity of these interventions make their evaluation by the means of classical approaches inadequate. Our objective was...

BACKGROUND Geriatric assessment is a multidisciplinary diagnostic process that evaluates the older adult's medical, psychological, social, and functional capacity. No systematic review of the use of geriatric assessment in oncology has been conducted. The goals of this systematic review were: 1) to provide an overview of all geriatric assessment instruments used in the oncology setting; 2) to e...

Although outpatient Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) has shown certain benefits in functional status and quality of life by many randomized controlled trials, no survival benefit has been reported. We hypothesized that the lack of survival benefit may be due to insufficient power of individual trials. In order to assess the influence of outpatient CGA on survival of older persons, we pe...

Age is the greatest risk factor for the progress of cancer. However, cancer can arise at any age, the chance of developing cancer increases with age (Wilkins, 1991). Aging is related to increasing functional decline and several commodities, in addition, elderly cancer patients are more at risk to physical impairment (Stafford et al., 1997). Geriatric cancer patients have more comorbidity condit...

Introduction: Managing the acute admission of older patients is a challenge in hospitals. Frail older people represent a larger proportion of acute admissions. Length of inpatient stay, inpatient mortality and the 90-day readmission rate are significant in this group of patients. In order to reduce the risks of adverse outcomes, frailty should be screened using an appropriate assessment tool an...

OBJECTIVE To describe simple, practical measures of physical and psychosocial function to detect problems and enhance the care of elderly patients. DESIGN We reviewed pertinent articles and current standard textbooks of geriatrics; the most useful findings are summarized, and tools that can be used for functional assessment of the geriatric population are presented. RESULTS Care of elderly ...

Management of elderly oncology patients presents some difficulties when deciding if a patient is suitable for curative treatment or not. Apart from the tumour characteristics, there might be some other factors that influence in this decision, as previous illnesses, disability or general life expectancy. Standardized geriatric assessment must be applied in these cases, evaluating frailty in the ...

A frailty assessment tool was designed, based on evidence from current studies. The tool has fi ve criteria. These include age (75 and over), fall with any injury or fracture (excluding fracture of the neck of the femur), dementia or delirium, care home residence, and reduced or lack of mobility over 24 hours. If any acute elderly inpatient meets at least three of these fi ve criteria, this pat...

The present and future rapid increase in the hospital population of geriatric patients is discussed with particular reference to the problem of advanced brain degeneration. The consequences of various clinical management options are outlined and it is suggested that extreme attempts either to preserve or terminate life are medically, morally and socially unacceptable. The preservation of life i...

BACKGROUND With regard to the growing proportion of elderly multimorbid patients, a sound undergraduate geriatric education becomes more important. Therefore we included the execution and interpretation of a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) into a mandatory two-week clerkship at a general practitioner's office. The present study examined the effect of a guide structuring the students' c...