Medical specialties
Geriatric Medicine Diploma
Register interest
A decision-focused diploma in geriatric medicine: how to recognise and measure frailty, carry out a comprehensive geriatric assessment, and make good decisions with older people about delirium, dementia, falls, medicines, acute illness and the end of life, always starting from what matters to the person.
Twenty-five weekly sessions across five modules take you from frailty and comprehensive geriatric assessment, through delirium, dementia and mental health, falls, bones and mobility, and the complex medicine of older age, to care across hospital, home and care homes, taught live by practising specialists you can question. Teaching is anchored on current guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the British Geriatrics Society and European specialty societies, with US differences flagged where they change practice.
- Course director
- To be announced
- Format
- 25 live weekly sessions on Zoom, in 5 modules
- Fee
- £1,200 (scholarships available)
- Dates
- Confirmed when enrolment opens
Who it is for
Senior trainees, fellows and early-career consultants in geriatric medicine, and physicians, GPs and other doctors who care for older people in hospital and the community, worldwide.
The programme
25 one-hour sessions in 5 modules, each with its learning objectives. This is the draft programme: the course director reviews and refines it before enrolment opens, so session titles may change.
Module 1 · Sessions 1 to 5Frailty and comprehensive geriatric assessment
1. Recognising and measuring frailty
- Assess frailty using the Clinical Frailty Scale and explain its limits
- Distinguish frailty from disability, multimorbidity and normal ageing
- Use frailty identification to tailor a care plan, never to ration care
- Explain frailty to an older person and their family in respectful language
2. Comprehensive geriatric assessment in practice
- Carry out a comprehensive geriatric assessment across medical, functional, psychological and social domains
- Agree goals with the older person that reflect what matters to them
- Lead a multidisciplinary meeting that produces a shared care plan
- Judge where comprehensive geriatric assessment has the strongest evidence of benefit
3. Acute illness in older people and non-specific presentations
- Recognise acute illness that presents as a fall, immobility or new confusion
- Avoid diagnostic labels that delay assessment of an acutely unwell older person
- Decide which older people can be managed safely through same-day emergency care
- Plan early mobilisation that prevents deconditioning in hospital
4. Medicines optimisation and deprescribing
- Conduct a structured medication review using explicit criteria for inappropriate and omitted medicines
- Calculate and reduce anticholinergic burden
- Deprescribe safely, with tapering and follow-up
- Negotiate medicine changes with the older person, their family and other prescribers
5. Nutrition, sarcopenia and unintended weight loss
- Screen for malnutrition and dehydration and act on the result
- Diagnose sarcopenia using grip strength and physical performance measures
- Prescribe resistance exercise and nutritional support for sarcopenia
- Investigate unintended weight loss in proportion to the person's goals
Module 2 · Sessions 6 to 10Delirium, dementia and mental health
6. Delirium: prevention, detection and management
- Detect delirium using the 4AT rapid assessment test
- Identify and treat the precipitating causes of delirium
- Apply multicomponent interventions to prevent and manage delirium
- Restrict sedative and antipsychotic use to severe distress or risk of harm
7. Diagnosing and treating dementia
- Assess cognitive impairment and distinguish dementia from delirium and depression
- Prescribe cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine in line with NICE NG97
- Explain the current position on anti-amyloid treatments to patients and families
- Plan post-diagnostic support with the person living with dementia and their carers
8. Distress and changed behaviour in dementia
- Identify unmet needs, including pain, behind distress in a person living with dementia
- Use person-centred non-drug approaches as first-line management
- Prescribe and review antipsychotics only where the benefit justifies the risk, and document why
- Write a plan with care home staff for preventing and responding to distress
9. Depression, anxiety and loneliness in later life
- Recognise depression and anxiety when they present with physical symptoms in older people
- Choose antidepressant treatment with attention to hyponatraemia, falls and interactions
- Assess suicide risk in an older person
- Connect older people to social and community support that reduces loneliness
10. Capacity, consent and safeguarding
- Assess decision-making capacity for a specific decision and document it
- Support older people to make their own decisions wherever possible
- Make and record a best-interests decision when capacity is lacking
- Recognise and respond to abuse and neglect of older people
Module 3 · Sessions 11 to 15Falls, bones and mobility
11. Falls: assessment and prevention
- Carry out a multifactorial falls risk assessment, following NICE NG249
- Prescribe strength and balance exercise and other targeted interventions
- Reduce the risk of falls in hospital and care homes
- Manage the consequences of a long lie, including rhabdomyolysis and pressure damage
12. Syncope, dizziness and orthostatic hypotension
- Distinguish syncope from falls, seizures and other causes of transient loss of consciousness
- Measure orthostatic hypotension correctly and treat it
- Identify high-risk syncope that needs urgent cardiac assessment
- Assess dizziness in an older person in a structured way
13. Osteoporosis and fracture prevention
- Assess fracture risk in older people, including those living with frailty
- Choose bone treatment that suits the person's goals, kidney function and life expectancy
- Work with a fracture liaison service to find and treat people after a fragility fracture
- Plan safe discontinuation of denosumab
14. Hip fracture care: the physician's role
- Prepare an older person for hip fracture surgery without unnecessary delay
- Manage pain, delirium and anticoagulant medicines around surgery
- Lead multidisciplinary rehabilitation after hip fracture
- Use national audit data to improve a hip fracture service
15. Parkinson's disease and mobility in older people
- Recognise parkinsonism in an older person, including drug-induced causes
- Make sure time-critical Parkinson's medicines are given on time in hospital
- Manage non-motor symptoms that affect mobility and falls
- Anticipate palliative care needs in advanced Parkinson's disease
Module 4 · Sessions 16 to 20Complex medicine of older age
16. Perioperative care of older people
- Assess frailty, cognition and function before surgery
- Lead shared decisions about whether and when to operate
- Prevent and manage postoperative delirium and complications
- Set up a geriatric medicine liaison model for surgical wards
17. Continence: bladder and bowel
- Assess urinary incontinence and identify reversible causes
- Choose bladder treatments that avoid anticholinergic harm
- Reduce unnecessary urinary catheter use
- Manage constipation and faecal incontinence in ways that protect dignity
18. Cardiovascular decisions in older age
- Decide on anticoagulation in atrial fibrillation for an older person living with frailty
- Set blood pressure targets that balance benefit against falls and syncope
- Adapt heart failure treatment to kidney function and frailty
- Discuss starting or stopping statins in later life
19. Infection and sepsis in older people
- Avoid diagnosing urinary tract infection from urine dipsticks in older people
- Recognise sepsis when the presentation is non-specific
- Choose antimicrobial treatment that balances benefit against harm
- Plan vaccination against influenza, pneumococcal disease and shingles
20. Diabetes and kidney disease in older people
- Set individual glucose targets that reduce the risk of hypoglycaemia
- Deprescribe diabetes medicines that cause hypoglycaemia in people living with frailty
- Interpret kidney function in older people and adjust drug doses
- Decide how far to investigate and treat chronic kidney disease in later life
Module 5 · Sessions 21 to 25Care across settings and end of life
21. Hospital discharge, intermediate care and rehabilitation
- Plan discharge from the day of admission with the older person and their carers
- Choose between home, intermediate care and rehabilitation pathways
- Prevent loss of function during a hospital stay
- Hand over care safely to community teams and carers
22. Hospital at home and care homes
- Select older people who can be treated safely through hospital at home
- Provide proactive medical support to care home residents
- Write an anticipatory care plan that prevents avoidable admissions
- Evaluate a community service for older people with simple outcome measures
23. Advance care planning and treatment escalation
- Start advance care planning conversations at the right time
- Complete a treatment escalation plan with the person and their family
- Make and communicate decisions about cardiopulmonary resuscitation
- Manage uncertainty when recovery from acute illness is unclear
24. Palliative and end-of-life care in frailty and dementia
- Recognise when an older person may be entering the last months or days of life
- Control pain, breathlessness and agitation at the end of life
- Provide end-of-life care for people living with advanced dementia
- Support families before and after a death
25. Complex case decisions and running an older people's service
- Apply the course to complex cases in a panel discussion
- Design a frailty pathway that links the emergency department, wards and community
- Use audit and quality improvement to improve care for older people
- Build a personal plan for continuing development in geriatric medicine
What the diploma includes
- 25 live sessions on Zoom, one evening a week, with recordings for the weeks you miss.
- Practising specialists teaching live, so you can put your questions to them.
- Weekly MCQs and a final written assessment.
- A digital certificate carrying your final classification.
Lead or teach the Geriatric Medicine Diploma
We are looking for a course director and faculty from the specialty. Sessions are one hour in the UK evening, live on Zoom, and paid.