Geriatric Physical Therapy.

The purpose of this text is to convey comprehensive information regarding the examination and treatment of the geriatric client. The editor has compiled 26 chapters of information that serve this purpose. The intended audience is entry-level physical therapy students and practicing physical therapists. The audience benefits from an organized format, a clear writing style, and appropriate illustrations.

There are many noteworthy chapters in the book. The first chapter is particularly good, with pertinent statistics, excellent graphs on the geriatric individual, and information on epidemiology. There is a chapter that addresses methods to increase communication with the elderly who have visual and/or hearing problems. Another chapter explains the physiologic changes of aging that occur in the brain and the changes that occur with reflexes and reaction times. A section is devoted to environmental changes that can be made to compensate for sensory deficits. A very important chapter on the differential diagnosis of dementia and Alzheimer's disease is included.

One of the most helpful chapters for physical therapists is the chapter on laboratory tests including complete blood count, glucose, and electrolytes. This is an area about which physical therapists have much to learn, and the information in this chapter is succinctly presented.

The chapter on wound care is another noteworthy chapter. Various treatments such as electrical stimulation, whirlpool, hyperbaric oxygen, and total contact casting are covered.

Reimbursement issues are detailed in another section. Medicare is addressed, along with reimbursement in acute care, rehabilitation centers, skilled nursing facilities, outpatient facilities, home health care, nursing homes, and retirement communities.

Other areas addressed in this book are posture, exercise with the elderly, arthrokinesiologic changes with aging, functional evaluation (various functional evaluation tools are examined), and geriatric pharmacology. All the chapters are well done, although the chapter dealing with lower-extremity orthotics would be more helpful to the reader if it were more comprehensive and had more illustrations.

Geriatric physical Therapy is edited well. The information is up-to-date and well written. Case studies are used in many chapters to illustrate patient situations. I highly recommend this text for individuals working in geriatric rehabilitation. The book is a good reference source for physical therapy departments that treat the geriatric individual. I also recommend this book for educators who teach the geriatric portion of the curriculum. Geriatric Physical Therapy would also serve as a good reference source for students in a physical therapy program.