Geriatry

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The branch of medicine that deals with the diseases, care and health problems of elderly people
2. Medical care focused on the illnesses and ageing-related conditions that affect older adults
3. A specialty of medicine devoted to treating and managing the health of people in their later years

Etymology: The most striking thing about "geriatry" is that it was coined by a doctor who knew it was wrong. In 1909, Ignatz L. Nascher, writing in the New York Medical Journal, proposed a name for the medical care of old people, modelling it on "pediatrics," the branch of medicine for children. The grammatically correct formation would have been "gerontiatrics," built from the Greek "gerontos" (old man) plus "iatros" (physician), but Nascher went with the shorter, more familiar-looking form. The pieces are ancient Greek. "Gêras" meant "old age," and the related "gérōn" meant "old man," while "iatrós" meant "physician," the same root behind words like "iatrogenic." Put together, they describe a doctor of old age. Nascher's choice to clip the stem shows how English medical vocabulary was often built on analogy with existing words rather than by strict Greek grammar. The word has a near-synonym, "geriatrics," which is the form that became standard, and "gerontology," the study of ageing, shares the same Greek root for old age.

Synonyms: geriatrics

Antonyms: pediatrics