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The proportion of elderly at any age without any chronic conditions is small, and disease can trigger a cascade of events resulting in functional deficits and disability. An increase in the number of activities with which an elder has difficulty increases linearly with comorbidity, that is, coexistent medical conditions that further complicate not only the genesis of a functional deficit but also its treatment. For example, rehabilitation for a stroke for an individual who also has painful, degenerative changes in the foot and a low tolerance for stressful activity secondary to angina with exertion would present a particular rehabilitation challenge. Yet, this example encapsulates geriatric rehabilitation specialist’s emphasis on care and function, not cure and disease. (more…)

Not all body fat is equally bad for your health. It is widely known that body fat distribution is extremely important. There is increasing evidence for the deleterious effects of Visceral Fat on aging. Waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is an epidemiological tool that demonstrates a correlation between Visceral Fat and development of diabetes mellitus, stroke, coronary artery disease, and mortality. This ratio is easily determined by dividing the measurement of waist circumference by hip circumference. (more…)

Weight loss improves many of the adverse health outcomes associated with obesity, including preventing or delaying the onset of diabetes, improving blood sugar control in those with diabetes, reducing low-density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol), raising high-density lipoprotein (good cholesterol), improving hypertension, improving symptoms of osteoarthritis, and providing an improved sense of well-being. (more…)

Cancer occurrence rates in a period of time for a given population is expressed in various ways. The incidence rate is a direct measure of the probability of developing cancer and is usually expressed per year. Incidence rates may be crude (all ages) or age specific. Since cancer is very age dependent, age specific rates are usually more informative. Cancer in elderly is more prevalent compare to cancer in younger age. When comparing population groups with different age distributions (such as the United States vs. China), the incidence rate should be age adjusted by multiplying each age-specific rate by the percent of individuals in a population with the same ages and then summing these to produce a single value. For etiological studies, incidence rates tend to be more informative than mortality rates, as they identify all diagnosed cases. (more…)

The regulation of fluid balance is crucial to survival. Approximately 9 L of fluid enters the gastrointestinal tract per day. Of that amount, about 2 L is ingested by mouth. The remaining 7 L consists of fluids secreted by the various gastrointestinal organs. Ninety eight percent of the total amount of fluid that enters the gastrointestinal tract is reabsorbed in the small intestine and the colon. (more…)

Mutations that extend lifespan in invertebrates typically render the animals resistant to multiple forms of lethal injury, whether the threat comes from oxidative agents, heat, heavy metals, or irradiation. Indeed, this stress resistance seems likely to represent the mechanism by which these mutations delay the aging process. Thus presumably much of the cellular and extracellular pathology that produces dysfunction and increases mortality risk in older animals is held in abeyance by the same, poorly defined, defenses that permit nematodes and flies to survive when exposed to external stress in an experimental setting. (more…)

First the blood vessels. The walls of the arteries stiffen with age. And the largest blood vessel in the body, the aorta, gets longer and dilates as you get older. These developments can occur just from aging and in the absence of significant atherosclerosis in the vessels. They are secondary to changes that are happening to collagen and elastin and to deposits of calcium. The actual tonus (or tension) of the arteries also increases with the progressive thickening of the layer of the arterial wall that is present under the inside lining. These changes may contribute to high blood pressure and damage to the arteries, which encourage atherosclerosis. (more…)

Rheumatoid Arthritis affects approximately 1% of the world’s population. Rheumatoid Arthritis
is a chronic, multisystem, autoimmune, and inflammatory disorder that involves peripheral joints in a symmetric distribution. The potential of the synovial inflammation to cause cartilage damage and bone erosions and subsequent changes in joint integrity is the feature of the disease. (more…)

Australia’s health policy is funded and delivered by several levels of government and is supported by private health insurance arrangements. In place are systems for the delivery of health, income support, and housing and community services to support aging people. Medicare, the national health insurance scheme, is funded and administered by the Australian (commonwealth) government and provides coverage for a range of primary care services, including visits to medical practitioners. (more…)

For trained physicians, aging is often defined by the age-related diseases and disorders people experience as they grow older. In fact, aging is often portrayed as a disease that is amenable to treatment, just like any other elderly chronic diseases that physicians are trained to diagnose and treat. This is not an unexpected view of aging given the Western disease-oriented model of medical education. Examples of the conditions that anti-aging practitioners endeavor to treat or postpone include cardiovascular disease, cancer, sensory impairments, muscle and bone loss, loss of skin elasticity, and decline in sexual activity in elderly function. (more…)