What is Geriatric Medicine?
Geriatric Medicine is the specialty of caring for seniors. Geriatricians work especially closely with frail, elderly patients and those who have dementia. We believe that excellent care requires more than understanding diseases and medicines.
It is even more important to know what matters most to the patient. It is also more important to understand the world in which the patient and caregiver live.
Just as pediatricians emphasize developmental stages, geriatricians emphasize functional status. We get a clear picture of the patient’s health when we know what a patient can do.
We also realize the importance of supporting the caregiver. Caregivers, not medicines, make the biggest difference in a frail patient’s life. After all, most of the care of a frail patient is at home, not in the doctor’s office.