Comprehensive care in the Elderly, comprehensive geriatric assessment

Abstract

The World Health Organization states that living longer presents opportunities to expand and contribute socially, with positive implications for maintaining a satisfactory quality of life.

This literature review aimed to strengthen primary healthcare for older adults, using person-centered comprehensive geriatric assessment as a starting point for designing individualized preventive, therapeutic, and rehabilitative plans. The goal was to achieve greater independence and quality of life for older adults within the primary care setting. The review method involved an electronic search of academic platforms for articles on the most commonly used instruments in primary care during comprehensive geriatric assessments in the areas of nutrition, functional capacity, cognitive ability, affective capacity, and social outcomes. The review identified several comprehensive geriatric assessment tools for older adults, such as the Mini Nutritional Survey of the Elderly (MNA) - Short Form, the Katz Index, the Lawton Index, the Mild Cognitive Screening Test (MiniCog), the 15-item Yesavage Geriatric Depression Scale, and the Social Resources Scale. In conclusion, comprehensive geriatric assessment is a tool that, at the primary care level and in the community, facilitates a multidisciplinary and patient-centered approach, thus strengthening the quality of healthcare. It allows for the evaluation of all relevant dimensions of older adults’ health and appropriately identifies risk factors for disability and functional dependence, cognitive decline, depression, malnutrition, and impaired social interactions. Furthermore, it enables the establishment of promotional and educational actions for active and healthy aging.