Geriatric medicine at universities in Europe

The demographic data of industrialised nations predict an unavoidable shift towards an increase of the ratio of old people to total population. Thus, senescence presents a challenge to sociology, psychology and medicine. The latter responds by the holistic approach of geriatrics and medical gerontology. The diversity of European nations and their medical schools lead us to assess the respective incentives in the field of geriatric medicine. By means of a questionnaire with a response rate of 41%, by direct contact and personal communication and by consulting published and unpublished papers we obtained a survey of current geriatric activities in European universities. The results of this investigation are summarized.