How to think like a geriatrician

So hopefully (optimism), I'll write a series of articles about how to think like a geriatrician.  Geriatricians deal with a specific patient population that is unique-but not just because the patient is old.  Age is just a number (seriously).  But there are other things that go along with aging.  This graph/powerpoint of how I think about things.  All of us, whether we like it or not, are moving from the left side to the right side.  Exercise, living right can delay that.  But eventually, as long as we are not hit by a car, will make it to the right side.  The purpose of this picture is to show how the practice and application of medicine fundamentally changes as one becomes more frail and as goals change to being more palliative.  Medicine becomes more collaborative, more of an art.  Standard medicine begins to fail.  The picture shows why that may be.