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 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.