The history of geriatric medicine. The present: Problems and opportunities

Geriatric medicine has contributed to the advance of medicine by bringing into several basic principles, most of them consolidated nowadays as standard care. Some of these principles have been “exported” to other specialities. Among these principles are: fighting against immobility, multidisciplinary teams, orthogeriatic care, day hospitals, progressive patient care, home care, memory clinics and stroke units, the importance of environment, the value of quality of life, the fight against ageism, the description of geriatrics’ syndromes, and the introduction of Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment as a working tool. At present we must find valid answers to questions like: who are we today? Who are our target patients? Or where is geriatric medicine nowadays? Among the main challenges of geriatric medicine are: to reach a universal presence of geriatric medicine in the public health care system of every country, to incorporate teaching of geriatric medicine to every School of Medicine, to contribute to establish good public health educational programmes for older people, to reach comprehensive, inclusive and successful coordination of medical and social services for older individuals, and to fight against all forms of ageism. We must, also, to take into account as priorities clinical research and prevention. Finally, it is necessary to avoid some risks. The main of them are the temptation of the so-called “antiaging” ideas, or to fall in rivalry or competence with other specialities.