ageing

When Bridget Driscoll, a 44-year-old mother of two died after being struck by a motor vehicle, considered to be the first motor vehicle fatality in UK and possibly the world, the coroner stated ‘I trust this sort of nonsense will never happen again’.1 Sadly, the coroner, medical practitioners and general public would be deeply and repeatedly disappointed. It was 1896. Motor vehicles were a curiosity. Drivers did not undergo any form of testing, be it medical fitness, driving ability or otherwise, and there were no licensing regulatory agencies.

This symposium covered a wide range of conditions of interest to the geriatrician, the general physician and the general practitioner, including demographic shift, the epidemiology of ageing, diabetes in older people, investigation and management of falls, an update on stroke (including the role of neurovascular clinics, stroke thrombolysis and rehabilitation) and the management of coronary heart disease in the elderly.