Diagnosis of Aging Skin Diseases

The population is aging rapidly, even faster than demographers envisioned two decades ago. Longevity, especially for women, has nearly doubled, since the beg- ning of the twentieth century, now approaching 85. People over 80 are the fastest growing s... Read more

The population is aging rapidly, even faster than demographers envisioned two decades ago. Longevity, especially for women, has nearly doubled, since the beg- ning of the twentieth century, now approaching 85. People over 80 are the fastest growing segment in the aging epidemic. Remarkably every day now 1,000 Ame- cans will celebrate their 100th birthday! Today, many 70-year-old persons, who have aged successfully, have about the same degree of health and vigor as people 50 years old, a generation ago. Despite these gains, it is an inescapable truism that increasing age is associated with increasing physiologic losses, which negatively affect the quality of life. P- sons in their eighties and nineties may be taking as many as 10 different medicines daily to control and moderate age-dependent disorders such as arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, Alzheimer''s. Textbooks of geriatric medicine recognize and give each of these the space they deserve. By contrast, age-associated cutaneous disorders are given short shrift in geriatric texts. Skin disorders, when mentioned at all, are inadequately presented. This do- grading of cutaneous disorders occurs despite the ndings of national health surveys which showed that people over 70 years of age had at least one skin disorder w- thy of medical attention. Startlingly, the same rigorously conducted epidemiologic survey showed that the number and diversity of skin problems increased proporti- ately with advancing age. Some older persons had as many as 10 problems which were deemed to be worthy of medical attention. Less