Fifty-five case histories in acute geriatric care: Bedside skills and beyond

During the last decades, as the population grew older, gerontologically adjusted services became the norm for the highest standard of care. The Acute Care for Elderly Unit has been specifically devised to provide trained acute hospital care for elderly patients with geriatric syndromes, disabilities and frailty. Hospitalists and geriatricians find only limited guidance in the literature referring specifically to the management of acute disorders in elderly persons, having multiple comorbidities, geriatric syndromes, disabilities and frailty. For such conditions we have attempted to update the most recent evidence and define the frontiers of knowledge in the volumes 'Challenges in Acute Geriatric Care' in 2009 and 'Acute Geriatric Care' published in 2012. Fifty five case histories in this tome provide an insight into acute geriatric care: the patients, the problems and the physicians' skills concerned.