Geriatric Medicine Textbook: Comprehensive Approach to Falls, Dementia, Functional Decline, and End-of-Life Care

The need for confident, practical geriatric care is growing. In the United States, the population age 65 and older reached more than 61 million people in 2024, and the number of older adults continues to rise across communities, hospitals, clinics, and long-term care settings.

Caring for older adults requires more than identifying a diagnosis. Falls, memory concerns, medication burden, frailty, functional change, caregiver stress, and end-of-life decisions often overlap. A treatment plan that looks reasonable on paper may not fit a patient’s mobility, cognition, living situation, priorities, or ability to manage care at home.

Geriatric Medicine Textbook is designed to help clinicians approach those realities with greater structure, clinical judgment, and respect for what matters most to each patient.

Written for medical students, residents, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, nurses, and interdisciplinary care teams, this textbook focuses on the core challenges of modern geriatric practice: falls, dementia, functional decline, frailty, multimorbidity, medication review, goals of care, and end-of-life planning.

Rather than treating conditions in isolation, the book emphasizes a person-centered approach to clinical decision-making. It helps readers connect physical findings, cognitive status, medication effects, functional ability, family support, safety concerns, and patient preferences into a practical care plan.

Inside, readers will find guidance on:

1. Falls risk, mobility assessment, and prevention strategies
2. Dementia, cognitive change, and care-planning conversations
3. Functional decline, frailty, and maintaining independence
4. Medication review and the challenges of multimorbidity
5. Comprehensive geriatric assessment principles
6. Family and caregiver communication
7. Goals-of-care discussions and end-of-life planning
8. Interdisciplinary approaches to complex older-adult care

Geriatric medicine is not only about treating disease. It is about helping older adults preserve function, dignity, safety, comfort, and control over the care they receive.

Whether used in clinical rotations, primary care, inpatient medicine, long-term care, rehabilitation, or hospice-related learning, Geriatric Medicine Textbook provides a practical framework for more thoughtful and individualized care of older adults.