title: Geriatrics: (women's health series).
abstract: As women age, they face challenging health issues. Their average life expectancy is longer than their male counterparts, yet they often have multiple chronic, ongoing health problems that complicate their care, accentuate their infirmity, and reduce their quality of life. Often, they fail to receive the same quality or amount of healthcare service, sometimes because of a lack of data specific to their demographics, at other times for myriad unclear reasons. What data are available suggest that they will usually glean the same benefits as their male and younger female counterparts, often with little increased risk of adverse effects from available medical diagnostic and therapeutic options. Cardiovascular disease, malignancies, musculoskeletal disorders (particularly osteoporosis), and cognitive and psychiatric illness are the most frequent, and often most devastating, health issues in this growing segment of the population. An understanding of the differences in disease frequencies, presentations, and response to treatments is necessary to provide older adult women with optimal health care.
authors.affiliation: From the Medical Service, G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Jackson, Mississippi and the Department of Medicine, Quillen College of Medicine, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City.
authors.forename: Andree
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Burnett
authors.forename: Ashraf S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Abdo
authors.forename: Stephen A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Geraci
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D005853:Geriatrics / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D009140:Musculoskeletal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy; D016387:Women's Health