An information service in a geriatric unit

A major deficiency during the initial stages of development of a geriatric unit was a lack of easily available information concerning facilities and services already existing in the community. A postal survey undertaken in conjunction with the Cape Peninsula Organization for the Aged resulted in the production of an information manual of services available to the elderly in the Cape Peninsula. In the introduction to this manual an invitation was extended to readers to direct requests for information to the Geriatric Unit at the Medical School of the University of Cape Town. This paper reports on the first 50 enquiries received, as a result of which 73 items of advice or information were given. Unmet community needs were revealed in 9 instances. Useful assistance was known to have resulted on 30 occasions, consisting, in the main, of arrangements initiated for appropriate residential placement, for geriatric and psychogeriatric assessments and for domiciliary assessments by community nursing sisters or social workers, sometimes assisted by an occupational therapist or physiotherapist. Those who care for the aged at home need to be put in touch with correct sources of relevant information, and this appears to have constituted an additional and useful function of our information service.