Sixty years ago when the speciality started as an interest in health care of older people, the population demographics were different and over 65 was considered old. Our founders  concerned themselves with addressing functional disability arising from illness under the heading of so called "giants of geriatrics" including incontinence, instability, immobility and impairment of memory. Systems were set up to identify those who needed geriatric care based on a guide of 65, and this still exists in some places, but often as older people live longer and have better expectation of good health this has shifted upwards to 70 or 75 or higher. Yet there are some younger patients who may benefit from care by geriatricians.

Therefore thinking is moving towards the geriatricians' target group as being  those patients with frailty related problems associated with old age recognising that many 75 year olds with single system illness are little different to 50 year olds with the same conditions. 

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