Clinical and functional patient characteristics predict medical needs in older patients at risk of functional decline.

Background: The rising number of older multimorbid in-patients has implications for medical care. There is a growing need for the identification of factors predicting the needs of older patients in hospital environments. Our aim was to evaluate the use of clinical and functional patient characteristics for the prediction of medical needs in older hospitalized patients.

Health outcome of older hospitalized patients in internal medicine environments evaluated by Identification of Seniors at Risk (ISAR) screening and geriatric assessment.

Background: Hospitals are in need of valid and economic screening and assessment tools that help identifying older patients at risk for complications which require intensified support during their hospital stay.

Methods: Five hundred forty-seven internal medicine in-patients (mean age 78.14 ± 5.

Identification of hospitalized elderly patients at risk for adverse in-hospital outcomes in a university orthopedics and trauma surgery environment.

Background: As a consequence of demographic changes, hospitals are confronted with increasing numbers of elderly patients, who are at high risk of adverse events during hospitalization. Geriatric risk screening followed by comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) and treatment has been requested by geriatric societies and task forces to identify patients at risk. Since empirical evidence on factors predisposing to adverse hospital events is scarce, we now prospectively evaluated implications of geriatric risk screening followed by CGA in a university hospital department of orthopedics and trauma surgery.