To successfully practice geriatrics, one must keep up-to-date with rapidly evolving knowledge, recognize heterogeneity among older people, seek answers through longitudinal studies, and accept no symptoms nor loss of function as being simply old age. Functional loss must be the focus and thus rehabilitation is essential to good geriatric care.…

Obtaining a valid informed consent from an elderly person, especially with possible senile dementia of the Alzheimer's type, first may involve solving the practical problems of effective communication. Impediments to effective communication with these individuals is discussed and suggestions for how to obviate them are given. (Author/BL)

Examines the concept of the rectangularization of the human survival curve as it relates to changes in life expectancy, survival, and compression of ages at death during the twentieth century. These studies provide evidence that rectangularization has had little impact on the population or mortality dynamics of the elderly. (JAC)

Examined preferences of 275 health care providers for working with elderly patients exhibiting symptoms of normal aging or diseases. In comparing descriptions of two hospitalized patients, physicians, nurses and social workers expressed a preference for working with patients with disease symptoms, raising concerns about geriatric care. (JAC)

Surveyed 335 older adults to examine knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs of older people about cancer. Found that the elderly hold a number of false beliefs and negative attitudes that might keep them from seeking treatment. An education program was developed on the basis of the findings. (JAC)

Explored the effects of locus of control and severity of hearing impairment on amount of denial in 39 older adults with hearing loss. Results suggested that locus of control and severity may affect the amount of denial exhibited to some extent, but other factors enter into the relationship. (JAC)

A husband-wife team long active in counseling with the old, residing in an institution for old persons, have a conviction that there is a need for counseling of the old and their families by counselors who also are old. (Author)

A procedure is described that involves iterative use of univariable optimal discriminant analysis (UniODA) to construct a classification tree model for discriminating observations from different groups. The procedure is illustrated using an application that involved discriminating 125 geriatric and nongeriatric patients on the basis of their…

Discusses delirium and how it differs from other types of mental status changes seen in the elderly and what interventions are most appropriate in affected individuals. Presents data from a study regarding nursing assessment of patients with delirium and outlines an educational model. (JOW)

This special issue of "The Gerontologist" contains session by session abstracts from the society's 51st Annual Scientific Meeting. Abstracts are arranged numerically by the number of the session in which they appeared and in the order of presentation within each session. There are a total of 391 sessions. Session topics are not provided; and there…

Older subjects responded slower than younger subjects on a spatial task which required them to rotate mentally a perspectively drawn figure in order to judge whether it was congruent with a second figure. (Author)

Surveyed 24 key informants concerning new geriatric program. Found inservice education program and hospital-based community resource directory were received positively and implemented quickly. Community physicians hesitated to make referrals to geriatric assessment team, citing fear that team would steal patients and threats to physicians'…

Examined knowledge of geriatric health policies of 154 physicians training in medicine, surgery, and psychiatry. Found a widespread lack of knowledge that could interfere with physicians' ability to use the health care system appropriately for patients' benefit and to function effectively as a gatekeeper to health care utilization. (Author/ABL)

Surveyed a national sample of 416 hospitals to describe the range and frequency of services offered specifically for older adults and to identify characteristics of hospitals associated with particular services. The findings show that hospitals of all types throughout the nation offer a broad array of health and related social services for older…

Describes the Southeast-Bayview Mental Health Center Geriatric Services Unit, which provides a comprehensive mental health program for the elderly of San Francisco. The program emphasis is on crisis intervention, with reliance on home visits and follow-up services as well as screening and referral. (JAC)