[Social geriatric examination]

The method of social-geriatric examination is described. This type of examination by an ambulatory team takes place at the patient's home. The examination is firstly directed to the interactions in the human-environmental system. By means of a scheme as an aid the interactions can be analyzed. This analysis, how people are dealing with each other and with need for care and with care, precedes the analysis of the chain of interacting unfavourable conditions of social, mental and physical nature, which are responsible for the disturbance of the balance of the system. This disturbance is signaled by way of the primary health care system to the geriatric examination circuit of which the social-geriatric team functions as first receiver of those signals.