Background
: It has been known that the prevalence of depression is increasing and depressive mood is accompanied with various physical symptoms in the elderly. In this research, we studied various physical symptoms of the elderly patients and how many of those symptoms were associated to depressive mood. We also investigated how much their doctors were concerned about depressive symptoms of the patients.

Methods : The subjects were 135 patients over 60 years old, who visited geriatric center and department of family medicine in a university hospital from December 2002 to May 2003. Individual interviews were conducted among the subjects and all symptoms who suffered from within a month from the time of interview, depression score, stress score, functional status and their sociodemographic factors were assessed. Finally, doctor's diagnosis or comments on depressive mood were assessed based on the medical documents of the elderly patients with depression.

Results : 56% of the subjects had depressive mood. Common symptoms of subjects were memory impairment, visual disturbance, fatigue, arthralgia, and thirsty sense. The more depressive mood the elderly have, the more physical symptoms they have. The physician paid their attention to depressive mood in 13% of the cases among the elderly with depressive mood. Depressive mood was affected by whom they lived together with, regular exercise and stress.

Conclusion : This study shows that most of the elderly patients had depressive mood and their common symptoms were associated to depressive mood. The stress and living together with their children were risk factors for depression of the elderly. However, depressive mood was less found among those patients who had spouse and who exercised regularly. Though physicians more likely recognize the depressive mood of the elderly as depression was severer, still little attention was paid to depressive mood in the elderly.

Background
: Comprehensive geriatric assessment is identified as a dynamic process responsive to the changes on health status that occurs over time in the context of extremely increasing trend in the numbers of the elderly people, their office visit, and the medical cost universally. We completed the comprehensive geriatric assessment and applied it to the Korean elderly through the multi-center trials.

Methods : We performed studies variables using questionnaires, with interviewing, physical examination to number of total 312 elderly people who visited the department of family medicine or physical medicine and rehabilitation of the 11 university hospital or general hospital in Korea from July 1, 1999 through October 31, 1999. We, the geriatrician, met and discussed 3 times to complete the comprehensive geriatric assessment through the consensus panel.

Results : We found the sex ratio of 312 subjects was 1 to 2 (104 males and 208 females) and the average age was 73.2 years old. The orders of more frequency of self-reported health status of the respondents were hypertension, arthritis, cataract, gastrointestinal disturbance, diabetes mellitus, urinary/fecal incontinence, depression, cerebrovascular accident, anemia, and heart disease. Nearly 15% of those showed depression 41.6% of those were in the status of socially isolation. We found 43.1% of those showed hypertension, 3.7% isolated systolic hypertension, and 20.2% orthostatic hypotension. Of those, cognitive impairment were measured in 37.1%, gait disturbance 13.0%, and the risk of malnutrition 39.6%. Geriatrician spent 21.1 minutes per person during the process of comprehensive geriatric assessmnet.

Conclusion : We realized we could diagnose and intervene effectively certain hidden conditions/ diseases, particularly urinary incontinence, falls, visual impairment, hearing impairment, pain, depression, social isolation, cognitive impairment, and orthostatic hypotension, with using the comprehensive geriatric assessment. These results reflected the fact that the comprehensive geriatric assessment might be necessary for the care of the elderly.

Background
: Falls in the elderly can lead to disability, hospitalizations, and premature death. Even if the fall does not cause significant injury, it may lead to fear of falling, loss of self-confidence and restriction of ambulation. Thus, we conducted this study to examine the risk factors of falls in the elderly.

Methods : The study population consisted of 70 persons, older than 65 years. Subjects were subdivided into 3 groups according to their experience of falls, during the past 2 year period. Among them, 30 persons had no previous experience, 20 had one fall, and 20 more than one fall. Age, past history, situations surrounding falls, MMSE-K, GDS-short form, ADL, IADL, Mini Nutritional assessment (MNA) were reviewed, and the Get up and go test, evaluation of orthostatic hypotension and hearing were done. T-test, chi-square, ANOVA, logistic regression test using the SAS program was performed.

Results : The mean age of the participants was 75.4 years with 62.9% males. The factors associated with falling were age (P=0.01), scores of MNA (P=0.04), Get up and go test (P=0.004), past history (P=0.01), MMSE-K (P=0.02), GDS-short from(P=0.001), ADL (P=0.003) and IADL (P=0.002). Those in the group who fell once occured mostly while doing a riskful task, while those who fell more than once happened mostly during positional change (P<0.0001). Independent predictors of falls were get up and go test results and GDS-short from scores.

Conclusion : The independent predictors of falls were Get up and go test results and Geriatric Depression Scale scores.