Leyden Academy - Healthy Ageing

The future is bright. We now enjoy life expectancies that are unparalleled in history. With people living longer and longer, the future of medical care will also change. ISCOMS 2010 made healthy ageing the theme of this year.

The Leyden Academy on Vitality and Ageing is devoted to improve the care for older people. If we all want to live healthier for longer, we will have to make serious advancements in the care for the elderly. You are the medical doctors of tomorrow. You will have to address the needs of this growing group of patients. Their care, however, requires a different approach compared to the care of adults.

If an adult is faced with a kidney disease, he can consult a nephrologists and his condition will be treated. A person of 70 years, however, will not only have problems with his kidneys, but also reduced cardiac, pulmonary and cerebral function, joint problems, etc. In today’s medical care, elderly have to visit many different specialists, who all have their protocols and prescribe different treatments and drugs. In the end, elderly patients travel to the hospital twenty times a year for consultations, investigations and treatments and have more then ten different life style advices and drugs. On top of that, treatment plans of the different specialists are often counter-productive. The cardiologist could try to lower blood pressure, while the nephrologist or neurologist might try to keep the blood pressure above a certain level, to ensure clearance or perfusion. Drugs often interact and no physician has the overview. Without a holistic ‘whole-patient’ view, the specialized medicine will not be the solution for the treatment of elderly patients.

In the focus workshop Healthy ageing we will discuss what the future of medical care will be like. We will discuss about the problems named above, discuss cases and give hands-on advice on poly-pharmacy, multi-morbidity, etc. In the end, you will be ready for the future of medical care.