Geriatric giants--contemporary occurrence in 12,210 in-patients

With advancing age, the degree of dependency and occurrence of great geriatric syndromes (GS), also referred to as geriatric giants, grow substantially. The prospective cohort study was aimed at conducting an analysis and comparison of geriatric syndromes (geriatric giants) among different age groups at admission to the acute geriatric department. Between 1995 and 2012, we had altogether 12,210 elderly patients at an average age of 80.5 ± 7.0 y (range 65-103 y) hospitalised at the Department of Geriatrics. We divided the patient set into three different age subgroups (65-74 y; 75-84 y and ≥85 y; e.g. 21.4%; 47.9% and 30.7%) and compared the results among them. 3,787 persons (31.0%) were without any GS. The growing tendency of the occurrence of all geriatric syndromes in combinations with increased age (p