[Prevention in geriatric medicine]

The authors point out the actual relation of prevention in geriatric medicine, and specific traits of prevention and its significance in the care of the aged. They deal with circumstances which compel the necessity to think in categories of prevention also in geriatry. They draw attention to the significance of risk factors in the aged and preventive interventions which are currently preferred. They deal with the relations of morbidity, incapability and the mortality rate and their dynamic relation in the future. They emphasize the fact that in spite of progress in the diagnostics and therapy, it is difficult to achieve improvement of the state of health in the aged, unless there are applied intervention of health support and prevention in the diseases, the origin of which can possibly be averted. (Tab. 2, Ref. 26.)