Geriatric medicine was implemented in many countries in the 1980s due to the discharge of many older adults with multiple pathologies, cognitive impairment and severe disabilities to emergency departments. In fact, at that time nobody was capable or wanted to care about these older adults with severe disabilities. For these reasons, most of the departments of geriatrics were created at that time. Most were based in sub-acute and long term care to take care of these patients. Since then, geriatric medicine has grown in many countries and now there are acute care units, day hospitals, mobile teams and memory clinics worldwide. However, today in most of these centers geriatric physicians are dealing with patients with already severe disabilities at a stage which is often not reversible. Almost 95% of the geriatric force is involved in care for already dependent older adults. We need, of course, to continue to take care of these individuals with severe disabilities, but moreover, we need to take care of the pre-frail and frail older adults. It is an absolute necessity if we want to prevent rapid disability in our aging population, and if we want to anticipate it to promote more efficient care.
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