Comprehensive Geriatric Medicine: Assessment, Diagnosis, Management, and Coordinated Care for the Aging Patient

Comprehensive Geriatric Medicine is a practical clinical guide for caring for older adults whose health needs rarely fit into a single diagnosis. An aging patient may present with a fall, confusion, weight loss, medication side effects, worsening mobility, caregiver strain, or several chronic conditions interacting at once. Effective care requires more than treating the most visible complaint. It requires assessment of function, cognition, medications, safety, goals, and the support system around the patient. What This Book Helps You Do Assess the whole patient Evaluate function, mobility, cognition, nutrition, mood, pain, continence, frailty, caregiver support, and safety risks that may affect diagnosis and treatment. Diagnose with context Recognize atypical presentations, delirium, dementia, depression, falls, medication-related symptoms, functional decline, and the ways chronic illness can appear differently in older adults. Manage complexity safely Balance treatment benefit with medication burden, frailty, life expectancy, comorbidities, patient preferences, adverse effects, and practical barriers to care. Coordinate care across settings Approach transitions between clinic, hospital, rehabilitation, home, and long-term care with attention to communication, follow-up, caregiver needs, and preventable harm. Support quality of life Use serious-illness conversations, advance care planning, rehabilitation goals, symptom control, and shared decision-making to align care with what matters most to the patient. What You Will Find Inside • Practical frameworks for falls, frailty, delirium, dementia, polypharmacy, functional decline, and multimorbidity • Assessment tools for cognition, gait, mobility, nutrition, home safety, caregiver strain, and treatment burden • Guidance on deprescribing, medication reconciliation, safer prescribing, and adverse drug-effect recognition • Clinical strategies for acute illness, chronic disease follow-up, hospital transitions, long-term care planning, and serious illness discussions • Decision checkpoints for urgent referral, specialist input, rehabilitation, palliative support, or closer monitoring • Coordinated-care principles for geriatricians, internists, primary care clinicians, hospitalists, residents, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and care-team learners Comprehensive Geriatric Medicine is not simply adult medicine applied to older age. It is a structured guide to assessment, diagnosis, management, and coordinated care—built to help readers preserve function, reduce avoidable harm, and support better daily life for aging patients.