Have you ever given an older person a standard treatment or procedure only to find that it didn’t work or even caused harm?

Do you find yourself frustrated when patients can’t tell you what’s wrong with them or can’t tolerate the treatments you’re trying to give them?

Have you ever been tempted to use the last refuge of the diagnostically destitute, the urine dipstick, to find out why a person has taken to bed, or fallen over?

Do you find yourself looking at guidance that recommends 5 new medications for a condition and wonder whether that suits the 90 year old lady who can no longer walk, in front of you?

Or do you look after older people at home who are falling, or struggling with their memory or medications and it’s not clear what to do?

These are scenarios that geriatricians encounter all the time, but we know what to do in these situations. We can show this to you.

This course was set up not for profit, but to further the principles of geriatric medicine to our colleagues in hospital and in the community. We want to help teach doctors, nurses and all members of the MDT what to do if a patient presents with acute confusion or falls. We want to help teach physiotherapists about the role of medications, or delirium, or acute and chronic illnesses, when managing patients with falls and immobility.

We want to teach anyone who looks after older people with frailty that we can’t just treat them exactly the same as a younger person with more reserves. We want to teach how we might modify that approach because of frailty, and how to do that in an individualised way.

We want to stop healthcare teams writing off older people, but also protect them from the burdens of unnecessary tests and treatments, and help share the “wisdom to know the difference.”

Many expert colleagues have contributed to writing this course, and enthusiastic experts will teach on the course. Having piloted the course in 2023, it is currently being provided to nurses at Leeds Teaching Hospitals and care homes across Leeds

We will be delivering a number of courses going forward, as a hybrid event on teams and in person, at the historic Thackray Museum in Leeds with our next course pencilled in for 23rd and 24th April 2024. See “upcoming courses” for more details