Pathways: Expanding the UICOMP Reach for Geriatric Care
Greater Needs, Greater Demand
Referred to as the “Silver Tsunami,” multiple factors feed the growing demand for healthcare services for the elderly. From the increasing population of aging Baby Boomers to the longer life expectancy, today’s senior population brings greater needs for care and support than previous generations. This need is further compounded by a rise in dementia and a rise in obesity prevalence among the elderly.
The demand created by a growing demographic of elderly patients leads to greater need for geriatric care. Geriatric care focuses on the whole person who may be living with multiple chronic conditions, advanced illness and complicated biopsychosocial needs. Geriatric medicine takes into consideration the patients’ mind, mobility, medications and what matters most.
Larry Lindahl, MD, associate professor of clinical medicine, who leads the division identified the unique needs of the elderly population early in his career.
“Within just a few years after entering private practice in 1982, I was caring for a high volume of frail independent living and nursing home-based older adults. It quickly became apparent to me that my three years of specialty training in traditional internal medicine provided little background for meeting the challenging needs of this population,” he recalls. “Educating myself in the practice of geriatrics, sitting for my first national certifying exam in geriatrics, and subsequently adding teaching of geriatrics to my work as a physician has led me through my career path to where I am today.”
The Geriatric Division within the UICOMP Department of Internal Medicine seeks to improve the health, independence, and quality of life of all older people. The division does this by upskilling the healthcare workforce to deliver knowledgeable, adaptable, and safe elderly patient care while expanding the reach of its geriatric services at OSF HealthCare and the central Illinois community.
Consultant services are a key feature of the division’s outreach and a way for the geriatric team to reach more patients, such as through area nursing homes or via telemedicine. The UICOMP geriatric team also staffs a memory clinic and supports a geriatric psychiatry program.
“When I describe consultant services to patients and families, I explain that the primary care service is the captain of the ship, and the consultants are crew members with expertise to help the captain steer the boat safely,” Brittany Woolley, DNP, nurse practitioner, explains. “In the case of geriatric medicine, the expertise we share is most often related to major neurocognitive disorders (such as dementias), movement disorders (like Parkinson’s or Lewy body dementia), adverse behaviors associated with strokes or traumatic brain injuries, delirium, and adult failure to thrive in late life,” she says.
Woolley shares how medication management can be a key component of geriatric care. “Polypharmacy is a significant issue that can contribute to adverse events such as falls, confusion (medication-induced delirium), increased side effects of the medicines, increased hospitalizations, and increased mortality rate,” she says.
Polypharmacy is defined as five or more medications prescribed simultaneously for chronic medical conditions. Woolley says polypharmacy can inadvertently decrease a patient’s adherence to prescribed medications because they are more drugs to manage. “Deprescribing, or strategically reducing or discontinuing medications that are no longer needed or may have more risks than benefits, is an essential function of the geriatric provider,” she says.
This article is part of the Summer 2025 issue of Pathways magazine.