Does Your Mom or Dad Need a Geriatrician?

What is a Geriatrician?

From Florida Hospital - Apopka

Caring for Mom and Dad is never easy, whether you’re around the corner or across the country. If you’ve noticed things just don’t seem right with their health, it may be time to evaluate your aging parent’s medical needs and see if they’d benefit from seeing a geriatrician, especially if you or the care giving spouse are overwhelmed.

Geriatric medicine is a specialty that focuses on senior health, and in preventing and treating disability and diseases as you age. Geriatricians, doctors who specialize in senior health, have undergone special training and are typically board certified in internal medicine or family medicine.

Some geriatricians provide primary care, and are especially helpful if your parents have multiple medical problems. Some geriatricians provide specialty consultation much like other specialists such as a cardiologist or pulmonologist. Your parent’s primary care provider may request a consultation about a particular issue. Or, you or your parent may self-refer for evaluation of a particular concern.

Does everyone over the age of 65 need a geriatrician?

A geriatrician most often treats people over the age of 65 who have multiple medical issues. But they also may treat patients over 65 who want to age as successfully as possible.

We all age differently, so there are varying degrees of health-related issues and disabilities in older adults. Not everyone over 65 years of age needs a geriatrician. If your parents are happy with their primary care doctor, and feel he or she is providing the attention needed for their health care needs, they’re probably fine staying with their doctor.

What’s involved in seeing a geriatrician?

If you or your parents decide to see a geriatrician, either as their primary care physician or as a consult, the doctor will take a detailed medical history. This may include a physical examination; medication review; functional assessment (an evaluation of a person's ability to manage tasks and activities that are usually necessary in daily life);vision, hearing and osteoporosis screenings; cognitive testing; and a family meeting.

What if Mom or Dad take multiple medications?

If your parents take multiple medications, a geriatrician may suggest a pharmacy consultation. As we age, our bodies absorb and metabolize medications differently than when we were younger. And, that can potentially lead to side effects and drug interactions. Working with a pharmacist, a geriatrician can evaluate and monitor your parents’ medications to monitor for effectiveness and help prevent any unintended consequences.

American Geriatric Association Recommendation

Regardless of an older person’s age, the American Geriatrics Society recommends that a geriatrician be consulted when:

An older person has several diseases and disabilities that cause significant impairment and frailty.

The caregiver — whether family or friends — is feeling a tremendous amount of stress in caring for their loved one.

Rosemary Laird, MD, geriatric medicine specialist at Florida Hospital, says older adults who benefit most from seeing a geriatrician include those who are:

dealing with cognitive impairments, such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease

have multiple medical problems that impact their day-to-day abilities to function

Rosemary De Angelis Laird, MDGeriatric Medicine/ Internal Medicine

unsteady on their feet or falling

depressed

not eating well and losing weight

having difficulty living on their own

Seniors often have complicated health issues. So, a coordinated care approach works best when it comes to consulting about a loved one’s medical care and determining a plan to help them maintain their quality of life and make home life safer and easier.


A Holistic Approach

Dr. Laird says geriatricians are trained to look at all aspects and focus on the bigger picture with attention to detail.

A geriatrician doesn’t work alone and is often part of a larger, interdisciplinary team focused on the needs of the patient. The team at Florida Hospital includes a geriatrician along with a geriatric-trained nurse practitioner and social worker. Together, they work closely with other professionals whose expertise can help address patient’s medical and non-medical needs. Often this includes rehabilitation therapists, nutritionists, pharmacists, counselors, or psychiatrists who bring additional strategies to the care plan. This close working relationship helps them coordinate treatment among a patient’s specialists.

What’s the best living arrangement for my parents?

A common question of concern to most adult children is whether their parents can maintain their independence and live on their own. It is a highly complex question, but a geriatrician is well suited to evaluate an elders physical, cognitive, emotional, and functional status and arrive at an opinion that respects an elder while addressing real physical and personal safety concerns with compassion.

Geriatricians can help you, your parents, and other family members determine long-term care needs, such as how long your parents can safely remain in their own homes without assistance, and what type of services may be necessary, and available, when they do need some extra help.

Sometimes the answer is a mix of your parent’s medical, functional and psychological conditions as well as what they want. Working together, the geriatric medical team can assess whether your parents can perform general activities of daily living – bathing, dressing or eating – and if there are any concerning underlying medical conditions that could impact the situation.

Geriatricians and their teams can provide additional support that you, as a caregiver, may need so you can better understand or decide how best to care for your aging loved ones.