It will be no surprise that the population of industrialized countries is aging rapidly. In the United States alone, 40 million individuals currently are older than 65 years, and this number is expected to substantially increase over the next decades. The prevalence and incidence of most major diseases, including neurologic diseases such as cerebrovascular diseases, Parkinson disease, and dementia, increase sharply with age.
On the other hand, normal body functions undergo changes that need to be considered when dealing with older adult patients. In sharp contrast, the health care system and physicians do not seem to be adequately prepared for this trend, and training in geriatrics or older adult medicine is rated inadequate by scores of medical students and residents.