Resources for Geriatric Care

A Guide to Geriatric Care

The elderly have a shifting set of health priorities that can be different from other adults.  Even those in good health are in a period of physical decline, and must monitor and maintain themselves with a closeness and specificity that is unknown to other age groups.  Their caregivers are sensitive to that; that’s why it’s its own branch of medicine, and its own branch of care.  Let’s consider what can be achieved with geriatric care, and what you should think about when seeking out treatment.

Benefits

Geriatric care is well-attuned to the vagaries of senior living, and offers a wide range of services that can make aging easier.

Like all other branches of medicine, good geriatric care is focused first and foremost on prevention.  For that, it requires close monitoring of the patient’s needs – even before they’re a patient.  Health problems can spiral very quickly in old age, and it’s far better to be able to nip any problems in the bud.  So the care often begins with frequent tests, from blood pressure to vitamin deficiency assays. 

For example, it’s been recently discovered that some signs of dementia are actually the result of vitamin B12 deficiency, and once a few injections are given, behavior returns to normal immediately.  This is the kind of overnight miracle cure that proper geriatric care can sometimes achieve.

In other cases, geriatric care can be as simple as assisting with meal preparation, doing errands for those who are enfeebled by age, or simply engaging your lonely elders in conversation.  Much of the burden of aging comes from alienation, and geriatric care often aims to combat this by keeping the mind engaged.

Extreme illnesses or hospice care is also part of geriatric medicine, and its advances over the last century have been truly inspiring.  Pain can be managed better than it’s ever been possible to achieve before, and dying patients can be made to feel comfortable up to the very end.

Pitfalls

Unfortunately, geriatric care is not as frequently or as well-applied as it could be, especially here in the U. S.  It involves the kind of constant attention that many harried children are unable to give their aging parents.  And with many families living spread out across many states, it can be impossible for the elderly to stay close to the people they love.  This can bring about a feeling of neglect and lead into depression, which precludes the possibility of getting effective care.

It’s also rare for the full battery of resources to be available to you as a health care consumer.  Most Americans can’t afford the level of treatment that the aged require to lead full, healthy lives, and there aren’t as many alternatives as there could be.  For healthy adults under 65, it’s usually just as good a strategy to exercise regularly and eat well as it is to see a doctor.  But like the vitamin deficiency example demonstrated, professional geriatric care can be far more important.

Conclusion

Geriatric care is vital to good long-term health, and should be handled seriously by those approaching old age, or those with an aged loved one.  It can be critical to their health and happiness, so make sure it’s part of your thinking.