At 85 and healthy? Why more medicine may do more harm

Article excerpt

At 85, an elderly patient in good health faces a familiar pressure: optimize every medical metric, close every gap, redouble prevention efforts. But one physician argues this instinct, shared by many doctors, may backfire. The article challenges the logic of aggressive medical management in the very old, suggesting that more interventions can do more harm than good for those who've already beaten the odds of reaching advanced age in reasonable shape.