Doctors focus on the physical, functional and emotional aspects of senior patients. Comprehensive and dedicated care in addition to geriatric interventions for the elderly is provided by the doctors to improve outcomes in activities of daily living. Conditions related to aging are identified, treated and managed through personalized care and regular monitoring.
Geriatric assessment is a multi-dimensional and holistic assessment of an older person that looks into cognition, emotion, nutrition, mobility, activities of daily living and social functioning to assess the health and well-being. It is the best way to evaluate the health of seniors. The assessment is used to plan the care required, improve quality of life and improve survival.
This assessment evaluates the thinking and reasoning abilities of the individual that can be broadly categorized as the intellectual functioning or the cognitive capacity. It takes into account the ability of the brain to think, listen, learn, understand, justify, question and pay close attention. Signs of cognitive decline include forgetting appointments and dates, forgetting recent events and conversations and feeling overwhelmed while making simple decisions.
The objective of preventive geriatrics is to improve life expectancy while maintaining a high level of physical and mental functioning through disease prevention and control of chronic diseases of aging using a mix of lifestyle changes, health care management and environmental management.
Dementia
Dementia is a condition where two or more brain functions such as memory loss and judgment are impaired and therefore daily functioning is impaired. While medication and therapies help, some of the causes are not reversible. Alzheimer's is the most common cause of dementia.
Parkinson
This progressive disorder of the central nervous system impairs movement and causes tremors. Dopamine levels drop due to the cell damage in the brain. While it may start with tremors in the hands, other common symptoms include stiffness, slow movement and loss of balance.
Palliative care aims at improving the quality of life and mitigating suffering in patients with serious and complex conditions. It is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex and life threatening illnesses. Palliative care can be combined with other treatments, therapies, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Impaired cerebral metabolism or altered mental state is called metabolic encephalopathy. There is alteration in consciousness and brain dysfunction. Common signs include delirium, dementia, ataxia or difficulty with tasks such as walking, eating, writing or activities of daily activities, jaundice and coma. It could be caused by infections, anoxia, metabolic problems, toxins, drugs, physiological changes and trauma, among others.
Vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, certain medicines and burns can cause loss of body fluids or dehydration. This also means that there is loss of important electrolytes such as sodium, chloride and potassium. Hyponatremia is the most common electrolyte disorder.