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General care of the elderly
1. General Care of the Elderly
MARC EVANS M. ABAT, MD, FPCP, FPCGM
Internal Medicine-Geriatric Medicine
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3. …. accumulation of changes responsible for the
sequential alterations that accompany advancing age
and the associated progressive increases in the chance
of disease and death. Harman D, Proc National Academy of Science USA, 1991
Aging…
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6. Frailty
Refers to a loss of physiologic reserve that makes a
person susceptible to disability from minor stresses.
An inherent vulnerability to challenge from the
environment.
Not dependent on age, diagnosis or functional ability
Aging is what happens when accumulation of changes (which can happen on multiple levels of complexity from the genome, epigenetic levels, biochemical processes, macromolecules and tissues, organ systems) responsible for sequential alterations with advancing age
Associated with increased chance of disease and death
Now we obviously see that not all older people are the same.
We know of people in their 70s or 80s who are still very active and functional for their age. There are stories of what we call SUPER SENIORS who are master athletes in their respective fields (the Indian marathoner, bodybuilders like Schwarzenegger, etc.)
On the other hand there are other persons who are in their 50s or 60s yet are already functionally limited, or even disabled due to the accumulated effects and complications of diseases
This is the concept of chronological age vs biological age. The former is the numerical count of time of a person’s existence. The other is the actual manifestations of changes in the function of the entire body that may be phenotypically discordant with time
As one ages, and due to numerous factors like baseline health, presence of vices, or disease, the amount of physiologic reserve (the amount of bodily resources that are used to overcome stress) decreases. This is because the body starts to use more of these resources to maintain equilibrium. This is the concept of homeostenosis-the ability to maintain equilibrium becomes narrower.
At some point, if the physiologic reserve remaining is overcome, adverse outcomes happen like what we call geriatric syndromes, hospitalization and death
As was discussed earlier on biological age, the physiologic reserve may vary from person to person depending on inherent and modifiable factors like genetics, lifestyle, presence of comorbidities, vices, environment, education, etc.