GERIATRIC HEALTH MAINTENANCE

Objective: To highlight articles pertaining to geriatric health mainte nance and provide clinicians with current evidence supportive of or op posed to screening or treatment for various diseases and conditions, M ethod: We conducted a computer-assisted search of the relevant medical literature and summarized the results of pertinent studies in the eld erly population, Results: The geriatric population is progressively in creasing in numbers, Unfortunately, no consensus exists about health m aintenance in this population, To date, the United States Preventive S ervices Task Force has made several recommendations about preventive s ervices; however, they did not specifically focus on the geriatric age -group, We outline their guidelines and discuss our clinical practices in a wide variety of encounters with geriatric patients, Conclusion: The efficacy of many screening tests and interventions for preventing illness in elderly patients is unclear, As the general population cont inues to age, further research in this area mill be important.