Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment

Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment (CGA) is a multidimensional, interdisciplinary diagnostic process that evaluates an older person's medical, functional, cognitive, psychological, social, and environmental status and translates the findings into a coordinated, monitored plan of care. Rather than treating a single presenting complaint, CGA assumes that vulnerability in late life is multifactorial and that problems in one domain spill over into others. Stuck and colleagues' landmark 1993 meta-analysis of controlled trials showed that CGA is not merely descriptive: when it includes control over the implementation of recommendations and structured follow-up, it reduces mortality, increases the chance of living at home, and improves physical and cognitive function. The same synthesis clarified that assessment alone, without the power to act on findings and to follow patients over time, yields little benefit. CGA thus reframed geriatric care around systematic, team-based evaluation linked to action. It became the organizing model for geriatric medicine units, outpatient geriatric clinics, and home-assessment programs worldwide. The method is best understood as a process, not a single scale, even though it is built from many validated instruments.