[The rehabilitation of older people]

Although age itself is not a disease, older people are more likely to contact diseases. These diseases and the loss of facilities in old age can develop slowly and almost unnoticed or can result from an acute illness. It is always important to intervene in good time as for older people spontaneous healing is often impossible without rehabilitation. This article deals with the development of geriatrics in Germany and introduces the institutions for geriatric rehabilitation. Taking the example of the geriatric department, it will describe in-patient and partial in-patient rehabilitation, the geriatric day clinic with out-patient rehabilitation and the rehabilitation team. The article ends by formulating some demands of governmental health policies and points out that nowadays the success of geriatric work is measurable.