Blog

I talk about frailty a lot. I hear the word ‘frailty’ a lot. In the clinical environment, across academic literature, in the media to describe weakened politicians and even from my 3-year-old son (courtesy of the snail).

A ‘day’ may be easy to designate, but creating a movement for sustainable change takes time, patience, and nurturing. It is with enormous pride that we look back at just how far we have come since 2017.

I have developed a secret obsession with walking aids. As an ST6 in Geriatric and Stroke Medicine, at least a passing interest might be expected, but I have spent a disproportionate amount of time of late investigating our Trust’s use of these items – how many are given out, their cost, who gets them and, crucially, what happens to them when the person they were given to no longer needs them.

As clinicians, we are aware of the complex interplay between physical, psychological and social aspects of illness and health. And yet when the pressure of work is intense we sometimes neglect our own wellbeing.

With over 69 million reported cases of COVID-19 worldwide, we have all experienced rapid and dramatic changes to our healthcare services over the last 12 months. Older people have been disproportionately affected by a greater severity of disease and mortality, detrimental psychological, cognitive and physical outcomes from necessary social distancing, as well as age discrimination. 

Care closer to home is a familiar term for geriatricians. Emergency attendance and acute hospital admissions have been steadily rising over the last 10 years and this, coupled with a reduction in inpatient beds across acute and community sectors, has led to challenges in managing capacity in many acute Trusts.

Hospitalised older adults frequently present as depressed on our wards, but research suggests that healthcare staff often struggle to identify depression, let alone provide suitable care and support.

The falls and syncope session at the 2020 BGS Autumn Meeting was a quick-fire session looking at some of the key issues arising in the management of patients who fall: management of hypertension & orthostatic hypotension, carotid sinus syndrome and rehabilitation.