Thirty years of Geriatric Therapeutics

Abstract

In the 1980s geriatric medicine was in its infancy in Australia, and geriatric therapeutics was a newly developing field. There was little primary literature regarding geriatric pharmacology and pharmacotherapy in older people. The Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne appointed its first geriatrician in 1983, and the ‘Geriatric Therapeutics’ series of articles (now known as ‘Geriatric Therapeutics Review’) began in 1986, as a partnership between the hospital's Pharmacy and Aged and Extended Care departments. Until 1990 Geriatric Therapeutics articles were published in the hospital's Pharmacy Bulletin. Since 1991 they have been published in this journal. For 30 years the series has provided readers with contemporary reviews of the management of medical problems in older people, with an emphasis on rational and safe drug therapy. Over that period there have been considerable changes in the therapeutic management of diseases that commonly affect older people, and the 125 articles published between 1986 and 2016 reflect many of those changes. To commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Geriatric Therapeutics series, this article describes its origins and development, and some of the changes in therapeutics that have occurred over the last 30 years.