Ageing is a global phenomenon. As more and more of us live longer and healthier lives, we need to plan well as we grow older and work toward the kind of health care system we’ll need in the future. To address this greying population in Kerala, Kinder Multispecialty Hospital, Kochi has a unique Geriatric Department with a team of dedicated health care personnel – Geriatricians, Geriatric skilled Nurses, Physiotherapists, Nutritionists, Senior Councillors etc. Where necessary, specialists from various other departments in the hospital also participate in the medical and rehabilitative care of the patients.

Why Geriatrics?

“Old age is not a disease”. Besides the diseases that affect older people, various other issues influence the downfall of the health of old people and here comes the relevance of geriatric medicine. It differs from Internal Medicine in the focus of the treatment. As people age, they become more heterogeneous, meaning that they become more and more different, sometimes strikingly so, with respect to their health and medical needs. Different organs age at different rates in the same person. Some 70 years old’s walk without support, some cannot. A husband may be actively walking but suffer from memory loss, whereas the wife may be wheelchair-bound, but have a clear mind.

Older patients often have multiple illnesses and would be consulting multiple specialists. The treatment for one problem might even make another condition worse since elderly patients are more prone to suffer from adverse effects of drugs. This is an excellent example of how the expertise of a geriatrician can help prevent drug-related interactions that at times may be deleterious.

Older patients often visit their physician for a worsening of a chronic condition. This is, at times quite a challenge as these patients are already on various medication regimens for multiple illnesses.

So how do geriatricians do it? Instead of treating each of the many medical conditions separately in older patients, a geriatrician focuses specifically on those conditions that affect a patient’s functional abilities. Trained to treat medically complicated elderly patients, they use a global approach that encompasses aggressive disease prevention and addresses the social aspects of illness.

The role of the geriatrician is to coordinate and guide a team of professionals not only for the clinical management of acute and chronic disease, but also to optimize and maintain functional status, in a concerted effort to keep the patient out of the hospital and living independently and safely at home for as long as possible.