Geriatric Medicine

The Department of Geriatric Medicine of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated with Xiamen University was established in 1995, and the Institute of Geriatric Rehabilitation was established in the same year. It was the earliest independent geriatric medicine specialty established in the city. It has received the Xiamen Science and Technology Progress Award six times and is a key medical discipline under Xiamen’s medical development plan. Since its establishment, following the "six-in-one" development model integrating clinical care, teaching, scientific research, preventive health care, rehabilitation, and medical care combined with elderly care, and after thirty years of development and construction, it has become a geriatric medicine specialty with strong comprehensive capabilities and distinctive specialty characteristics. It has achieved significant accomplishments in both hardware facilities and teaching, scientific research, external academic exchanges, and the development of talent teams. This specialty integrates medical care, teaching, and research, with strong technical capabilities. It currently has more than 30 medical and nursing staff, including 7 chief physicians, 2 physicians with associate senior professional titles, and 7 attending physicians. Among the physicians, 1 holds a doctoral degree and 12 hold master’s degrees, among whom among whom many have overseas study experience. After more than 30 years of intensive work in the specialty, the development of geriatric medicine has reached a leading level within the province, and it has the largest patient population. It is the only institution in the city with an Institute of Geriatric Rehabilitation and has achieved significant results in the field of geriatric disease research. Our department is one of the first national cooperative units for osteoporosis diagnosis and treatment technology, and the first batch nationwide and the only unit in the province to pass the quality-control certification for DXA bone mineral density measurement, reaching advanced domestic and international levels in the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis. In recent years, geriatric palliative care has become an important branch of geriatric medicine development, and our department has become one of the first palliative care specialty alliance deputy council units in Fujian Province and the only one in Xiamen. In 2024, the Department of Geriatric Medicine was designated a Demonstration Ward for Geriatric Nutrition and was also among the first to establish such a ward in Xiamen. The geriatric ward is located on the 18th floor of Building 3 in the main hospital campus on Hubin South Road. It currently has 44 open beds and more than 1,000 discharges annually. The geriatric ward has undergone age-friendly modifications throughout. The ward has high illumination, wide spacing between beds, and grab bars and other fall-prevention devices in the bathrooms, washing areas, and corridors. Multiple measures, such as convenience service boxes, are provided to care for elderly patients. Fall-prevention facilities, including crutches, wheelchairs, and walking aids, are provided for older adults. A comfortable ward environment is provided for patients. The geriatric outpatient clinic is located on the 2nd floor of Building 7 in the headquarters campus. It receives more than 60,000 outpatient visits annually, conducts more than 2,000 osteoporosis examinations annually, and performs more than 300 comprehensive geriatric assessments annually. The Department of Geriatric Medicine outpatient clinic has 4 consultation rooms and offers VIP outpatient services, geriatric expert clinics, geriatric specialty clinics, and general outpatient services to meet the medical needs of different groups and optimize the consultation process. Specialty clinics are the focus and a distinctive feature of outpatient clinic development. There are currently 5 specialty clinics: the osteoporosis specialty clinic, arteriosclerosis specialty clinic, vertigo clinic, geriatric dementia clinic, and geriatric syndromes clinic. The experts on duty all have extensive clinical experience and can diagnose and treat various acute, critical, and complicated cases in geriatric medicine, rapidly establish clear diagnoses for patients, and relieve their suffering. Our department has established an arteriosclerosis testing room, a video nystagmography room, a U.S. research-grade high-end direct digital dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) examination room, a psychological assessment room, a comprehensive geriatric assessment room, and a geriatric activity center. A psychological assessment team and a comprehensive geriatric assessment team have been established. Through physical function assessment, cognitive function assessment, psychological and behavioral assessment, nutritional health assessment, environmental assessment, socioeconomic assessment, risk assessment and management, and assessment using various neurological function scales for older adults, the content of comprehensive geriatric assessment has been further enriched, providing patients and physicians with comprehensive information. This facilitates physicians, nursing staff, and family members in developing appropriate care plans, prolonging older adults’ lives, and improving their quality of life. The department’s geriatric health education team conducts health education in the department every week, provides health guidance in the community every month, and provides health guidance on chronic disease management and care for older adults at senior universities, elderly care institutions, and in patients’ homes on an irregular basis. Screening, diagnosis and treatment, and follow-up management of chronic diseases in older adults are areas on which the Department of Geriatric Medicine has focused its long-term development. In 2021, our department took the lead in conducting osteoporosis fracture risk screening among residents throughout the province, establishing a complete screening system, a hospital-community hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system, a fracture liaison team, and a comprehensive and mature geriatric chronic disease follow-up system, while also conducting a series of health education activities and creating the first osteoporosis screening database. This system greatly increased the rate of medical consultations for osteoporosis, reduced the incidence of fractures among older adults, improved the quality of life of the elderly population, and reduced government expenditures related to osteoporotic fractures. At present, our department treats the largest number of osteoporosis patients annually in the city, and its diagnostic and treatment technology has reached an advanced domestic level. The Demonstration Ward for Geriatric Nutrition was the first of its kind established in the city. Malnutrition in elderly patients is a common geriatric syndrome, with an extremely high incidence among hospitalized older adults. The nutritional status of hospitalized older adults is closely related to clinical outcomes. Malnutrition can prolong patients’ hospital stays, increase postoperative complications, functional dependence, infection, and mortality. Our department has long been committed to establishing a Demonstration Ward for Geriatric Nutrition, conducting rapid and simple screening and nutritional assessments for hospitalized older patients, improving standardized nutritional intervention for older patients with nutritional problems, and regularly providing patients with nutrition education to increase their awareness of and attention to nutritional intervention. Nutritional therapy is an important clinical component. The establishment of the Demonstration Ward for Geriatric Nutrition will bring a better quality of life to more patients and further reduce the incidence of severe illness and mortality caused by nutritional problems. The Department of Geriatric Medicine of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated with Xiamen University is an outstanding case of a health-promoting hospital. Our department regularly opens health education lectures and special health education sessions to the public, regularly conducts free medical consultations within the hospital, in communities, and in rural areas, establishes a geriatric health club and organizes a series of activities, creates WeChat groups for communication between elderly patients and medical staff, provides continuing care services, and establishes coordination mechanisms with multiple elderly care homes to provide patients with a green channel integrating medical care and elderly care. Guided by the health needs of the people, using the professional platform and advantages to promote health, and supported by a sound long-term mechanism for health promotion management, our department is committed to creating a health-supportive environment and advocating healthy lifestyles, and all medical and nursing staff in our department have consistently put these principles into practice. The teaching and research group of the Department of Geriatric Medicine is an important force in undergraduate geriatric medicine education, and its teachers are all experts with senior professional titles. It undertakes the teaching and training of undergraduate and postgraduate students at the School of Medicine of Xiamen University and Fujian Medical University. All teachers in the teaching and research group of the Department of Geriatric Medicine patiently impart knowledge to resident trainees and interns in their work, combine theory with practice, emphasize the improvement of clinical skills, and regularly organize large-scale discussions of complicated cases. In recent years, the department has offered the undergraduate elective courses "Geriatric Medicine" and "Frontier Knowledge in the Discipline" at Xiamen University, receiving high praise and recognition from faculty and students. During the nearly 30 years since the establishment of the Department of Geriatric Medicine of Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated with Xiamen University, it has achieved considerable accomplishments under the care and support of hospital leadership and through the selfless collaboration of relevant hospital departments. The rates of definitive diagnosis for various complicated and difficult diseases, successful rescue of critically ill patients, and clinical cure and improvement for common and frequently occurring diseases have all gradually increased. In particular, it has extensive clinical experience in the comprehensive diagnosis and treatment of geriatric diseases. The Department of Geriatric Medicine has a professional nursing team, many members of which have received further training as senior nutritionists, senior elderly care workers, and elderly care assessors. The team has a high level of expertise in the nursing and technical procedures for common and frequently occurring diseases in older adults, and provides efficient, convenient, prompt, humane, high-quality, and seamless nursing services throughout the entire process. The Department of Geriatric Medicine serves older adults throughout the city, both on and off the island, as well as in southwestern Fujian. It not only undertakes disease prevention, health care, and diagnosis and treatment for older adults, but also conducts multiple community free medical consultation activities and health lectures in connection with themes such as "World Osteoporosis Day" and the "Double Ninth Festival." It also conducts training and continuing education for geriatric medical and nursing personnel throughout the city, organizes multiple academic conferences and forums related to geriatric diseases, has a certain influence in Xiamen and southwestern Fujian, and has achieved good social benefits. Against the backdrop of building an age-friendly society, the Department of Geriatric Medicine will further improve the level of specialized services for older adults, promote the concept of healthy aging, and safeguard the health of older adults. With a high sense of responsibility and great enthusiasm for work, the Department of Geriatric Medicine will provide high-quality and sophisticated medical services, and welcomes both new and returning patients to visit our hospital.