Geriatric cardiology emphasizes five essential principles for older adults with cardiovascular disease, including addressing multicomplexity, cognition, physical function, social factors, and patient goals.
This review outlines five essential principles of geriatric cardiology to optimize care for older adults with cardiovascular disease by addressing multimorbidity, cognitive and physical function, social factors, and patient goals.
Older adults with cardiovascular disease (CVD) contend with deficits across multiple domains of health due to age-related physiological changes and the impact of CVD. Multimorbidity, polypharmacy, cognitive changes, and diminished functional capacity, along with changes in the social environment, result in complexity that makes provision of CVD care to older adults challenging. In this review, we first describe the history of geriatric cardiology, an orientation that acknowledges the unique needs of older adults with CVD. Then, we introduce 5 essential principles for meeting the needs of older adults with CVD: 1) recognize and consider the potential impact of multicomplexity; 2) evaluate and integrate constructs of cognition into decision-making; 3) evaluate and integrate physical function into decision-making; 4) incorporate social environmental factors into management decisions; and 5) elicit patient priorities and health goals and align with care plan. Finally, we review future steps to maximize care provision to this growing population.
Goyal et al. (Mon,) conducted a review in Cardiovascular disease in older adults. Geriatric cardiology emphasizes five essential principles for older adults with cardiovascular disease, including addressing multicomplexity, cognition, physical function, social factors, and patient goals.