La place de l'évaluation gériatrique dans la prise en charge du SAHS du sujet âgé

The prevalence of the sleep apnea syndrome after age 65 years old is high. Since the beginning of 2000s, the inclusion in the geriatric evaluation program of procedures for screening, diagnosis and care of the sleep disorders has considerably developed. Thus, it is timely to make the link between geriatricians and sleep specialists by clarifying the geriatric rules for the realization of a geriatric assessment. The latter has already demonstrated its efficiency in numerous domains. This concept recovers two activities: the multidimensional geriatric evaluation which is a geriatric evaluation standardized by detection of the co-morbidity and the geriatric syndromes, and the comprehensive geriatric assessment which consists in listing the various problems of the patient, distinguishing the somatic and\or psychiatric pathologies from the physiological consequences of ageing, assessing the functional impact of the pathologies; deciphering the interference between these pathologies, assessing their consequences on the social environment of the patient, and finding a hierarchy for the various health problems of the patient. The comprehensive geriatric assessment is organized in five phases allowing the implementation and the follow-up of recommendations adapted to each individual.