The BGS Autumn meeting concluding in Leicester today surveys the latest scientific research and the best clinical practice in care of older people. Our ageing population is stimulating extensive NHS service redesign to deal with the challenge of caring for larger numbers of older people both in and out of hospitals.
I feel there’s been a renaissance in our appreciation of many fundamental issues – such as what happens and why when an older patient is left languishing in bed for days on end, such that he can lose a significant amount of muscle bulk. Or, why for example frailty, delirium and dementia can interlock in fact into one big jigsaw, and this has profound implications, for example, for effectiveness of clinical care. And whisper it quietly none of these clinical topics is an island. They have never operated in isolation in affecting the life journey of my own mum.
One of the contributors to the meeting is Dr Amit Arora.
Dr Amit Arora has been a consultant geriatrician in the North Midlands since 2004. His clinical interests include all falls, dementia, frailty, multiple medical conditions, comprehensive assessment, and other conditions related to ageing.
He has served as Chairman of the England Council of the British Geriatrics Society, Deputy Chairman of the Medical Specialties Committee of the British Medical Association, Regional President of the BMA, and has been an advisor member for the Disability Living Allowance Advisory Board in England.. He chaired the West Midlands Quality Review Service for people living with dementia advising commissioners and provider organizations and is the current chair for the Frailty Standards. He is also the clinical lead for NIHR CRN: Ageing for West Midlands. He has a keen interest in National and International Health quality and policy for the ageing population and has contributed internationally.
Amit has also written a brilliant after word for my book ‘Essentials of delirium’ to be published next year:
“Delirium as a medical condition has been known for years; however, it has somehow frequently remained under-recognized, under-diagnosed, and under-treated until recently. Delirium is typically a hard subject to tackle but this book handles it brilliantly from start to finish.
This book is intended for the workforce, wherever they are practicing in the world, but is equally important for patients, families and carers. It covers both simple and complex issues related to delirium and these all are well explained. Whether readers are interested in emergency presentations, detection, risk factors, differential diagnosis, various measurement scales, or post-delirium effects, the book covers them adequately. The book also explains prevention, predictive models and different approaches to dealing with delirium. These are topics which may be of use to all healthcare professionals.
This book should prove useful to all members of multi-disciplinary teams in various settings, including the hospital, community and care homes. The book is relevant not only for clinicians, but also for policy makers and managers. Shibley’s passion and understanding of the various aspects of the patient’s well-being beyond the disease itself is clearly apparent and challenges one to think differently.”
This is an extract only. The full piece will appear in the book.
Dr Shibley Rahman blog 