Older people undergo psychologic, physiologic, and anatomic changes that affect all organ systems including the skin. The elderly are the fastest growing age group in the US. By 2050, it is estimated that 23 percent of Americans will be over age 65, and of these about 25 percent will be older than 85. Many studies have demonstrated that skin disease is more common in the geriatric population than in the general population. One study revealed that 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 years had a cutaneous disease significant enough to warrant treatment by a physician. Patients older than 74 years old are even more likely to develop significant skin diseases.

Your skin changes with age. It becomes thinner, loses fat, and no longer looks as plump and smooth as it once did. Your veins and bones can be seen more easily. Scratches, cuts, or bumps can take longer to heal.

What is the best treatment for 70 year old skin?
Wash with a gentle, fragrance-free, moisturizing bar soap, cleanser, or body wash. Doing so will help soothe rather than dry your skin. Moisturizing ingredients that can help reduce dryness include ceramides, glycerin, hyaluronic acid, and lanolin. Use warm (not hot) water and don’t scrub or exfoliate your skin. Over-washing and oversoaping can lead to dryness.

Why does wound healing get harder as we age?
When you skinned your knee as a kid, the scrape healed on its own with little more than a bandage and mom’s TLC. Now that you’re older, wounds can take much longer to heal — sometimes many months. The body’s capacity to repair the skin diminishes as we get older. There aren’t as many growth factors and stem cells in the skin. Chronic disease, especially blood vessel disease, and malnutrition can also slow the healing process.

Prevention is Key: Prevention is still the best medicine. At The Art of Skin Dermatology we encourage prevention of skin problems in our elderly patients by emphasizing screening and early detection. Sun safety remains important for older patients, and it is impossible to over-emphasize the need for proper nutrition. Adequate nutrition is fuel for the skin which needs all the support it can get to keep it running smoothly.

It is important to exercise, practice good nutrition, and protect against obesity, smoking, alcohol, and sun abuse. A crucial way to protect our patients’ skin health is to detect an illness early, while it is still easy to treat. At The Art of Skin Dermatology, we encourage patients to have annual skin examinations. During our visits we teach our patients to be good observers of their own bodies and health.

We are part of your health care team.
Great, thorough patient care requires cooperation and communication between the dermatologist, primary care doctor, internist, psychiatrists, plastic surgeon, endocrinologist, home health care, and other medical caregivers. The team approach also includes your receptionists, schedulers, medical assistants, nurses, and residents that can each elicit information, identify potential problems, and strive to meet special needs. It is important that the dermatologist and staff be overtly caring and offer social support to the elderly patient. In certain instances it may be important for the Dermatology team to communicate with other relevant physicians before, during, and after certain surgeries and procedures For example, anticoagulant agents should not be discontinued at any point without the express permission of the physician who recommended them. In general, it is not advisable to discontinue anticoagulants given for disease management rather than routine age-related prophylaxis (i.e., a baby aspirin a day), even if the managing physician is amenable. The dermatologic surgeon bears the burden of deciding whether the risk of bleeding outweighs the risk of a catastrophic cardiac, pulmonary, or cerebrovascular event secondary to interruption of anticoagulant therapy. As the team manager, the derma-surgeon is responsible for making sure all members of the team are working from the same playbook.