Geriatrics

Nearly half of US adults aged 50 to 80 years report at least 1 symptom of addictive eating, a caution flag for primary care according to these experts.

AAFP Board Chair Ransone points to recent data that show two-thirds of long COVID patients are already treated in primary care settings.

Older adults who report being "highly lonely" are up to 2.5 times more likely to use opioid analgesics, sedatives, and anxiolytics.

Medicare beneficiary use of telehealth services reached nearly 9 million as COVID-19 shut down on-site visits. Will the options be permanent?

Our app reviewer picked out the top 5 apps in geriatric care. Scroll through our quick slideshow to get the highlights. 

Can a physician's age affect treatment outcome? It did in this study of hospitalized elderly patients.

Take a minute to test your knowledge of the latest findings on key health issues in older persons.

Recent research on the health of older persons uncovers news both good and sobering. See highlights of 10 studies in our slides.

Bullous pemphigoid, varicose veins, dermatomyositis, myasthenia gravis, coma bullae, xerosis, atrophie blanche, Grover disease-a review of age-related clinical concerns and how to recognize them.

Even moderate amounts of exercise can lower the risk of death in older men with high blood pressure, a new study shows.

Rising medication use and polypharmacy, along with physiological changes in older patients, greatly increase their risk of medication-related problems and adverse events.

Many older adults have several related medical problems that have various causes and involve many parts of the body, complicating patient care. This week’s photo quiz offers some common geriatric presentations to test your knowledge.

In a recent study, both baseline and new multiple chronic conditions led to worse health in older patients.

What accounts for the 129% increase in admissions for constipation over the past decade-and what can be done to avoid these expensive and often unnecessary admissions? Primary care clinicians take note.

These wounds occurred when this 77-year-old woman fell when chasing her dog. Such wounds-a combination of ecchymoses and erosion caused by blunt and sheering forces on fragile skin-are common in the elderly, even after relatively mild trauma. Simple interventions will promote healing.

Statins used for primary prevention in elderly patients result in a significant reduction in MI and stroke.

Eccentric and irregular pigmentation prompted a biopsy in this elderly woman with a history of basal cell carcinoma and melanoma. The surprising diagnosis was a heavily pigmented squamous cell carcinoma in situ.

Incarcerated rectal prolapse is uncommon and seen mainly in elderly female patients. If ischemia is present, perineal proctosigmoidectomy is the only remaining treatment option.

Preseptal cellulitis, myasthenia gravis, squamous cell carcinoma, atheromatous embolism, calciphylaxis are shown here.

Sleep apnea in adults aged 65 years or older posed an increased risk for silent cerebral infarction and lacunar infarction.

The reduction in dementia is not simply the result of the drugs reducing their blood pressure.

This is a case in which we believe vancomycin and piperacillin/tazobactam caused DIHS with lung involvement in form of bilateral pleural effusions, a very rare presentation.

This patient had unilateral petechiae on the dorsum of the left foot. If the petechiae were symmetric, the first condition on the differential diagnosis would be thrombocytopenia. Here, though, the platelet count was normal. The patient also had a duplex of both the arterial and venous systems that showed complete thrombosis of both the arterial AND venous systems.

The patient has a stage 1 decubitus ulcer on her left heel. Both feet are cool but are the same temperature. Distal pulses are palpable but weak on the good foot; they are not palpable on the left and can only be heard faintly with a handheld Doppler. You note unilateral petechiae on the dorsum of the left foot.

The benefits of antihypertensives in the elderly should be unquestioned-especially since SHEP and its revisit. Avoiding them will create more problems. But caution can be exercised with these specific measures.

Reducing hyperglycemia in older patients with chronic kidney disease may be best accomplished using incretin-based agents.

This large bruise developed after the patient had an accident in her yard. Post-traumatic subcutaneous hematomas are common in elderly women, especially those who are anticoagulated. Untreated, the hematoma can eventuate into an abscess and even sepsis.

More than half of adults 65 years and older have at least 3 chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes mellitus, arthritis, high blood pressure, and Alzheimer disease, according to the American Geriatrics Society.

The elderly patient has had type 2 diabetes for 15 years is now home bound after a stroke. Her HbA1c is 9.6 and she takes only metformin. Review the rest of her laboratory results and propose a management plan.