Health maintenance

"Health maintenance" includes screening procedures, risk assessment, early intervention, and prevention--primary, secondary, and anticipatory. Guidelines for health maintenance in some age groups are quite well established, especially for children. Although recommendations for older adults may lack complete consensus, there are many activities that are widely accepted and can be employed in every primary care physician's practice. In the words of Anne Somers: "Postponement of dependency and promotion of vitality may be the most important public health challenges of the next two decades." Primary care physicians have the greatest opportunity to meet this challenge through the implementation of specific strategies for health maintenance with patients at every stage of life.