NCCPA CAQ Geriatrics flashcards
NCCPA CAQ Geriatrics · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Beers Criteria
- An expert consensus list of potentially inappropriate medications for adults 65 and older, used to reduce adverse drug events, falls, delirium, and hospitalization during medication review.
- Prescribing cascade
- A prescribing error in which a symptom caused by one drug is treated with a second drug rather than by adjusting or stopping the first, increasing polypharmacy and adverse effects.
- Confusion Assessment Method
- A bedside delirium screen requiring acute onset with fluctuating course plus inattention, and either disorganized thinking or altered level of consciousness.
- Delirium vs dementia
- Delirium has acute onset, fluctuating attention, and altered consciousness; dementia has insidious, progressive cognitive decline with preserved consciousness until late stages.
- Normal pressure hydrocephalus
- A reversible dementia cause with the triad of gait apraxia, urinary incontinence, and cognitive impairment; imaging shows ventriculomegaly, and large-volume lumbar puncture may improve gait.
- Pseudodementia
- Cognitive impairment mimicking dementia that accompanies depression in older adults; patients often answer 'I don't know' and improve with treatment of the mood disorder.
- Timed Up and Go test
- A fall-risk screen measuring time to stand, walk 3 meters, turn, and return; a result of 12 seconds or more suggests increased fall risk.
- Stress incontinence
- Involuntary urine loss with increased intra-abdominal pressure such as coughing, sneezing, or lifting; first-line management is pelvic floor muscle training.
- Urge incontinence
- Involuntary urine loss accompanied by a sudden strong desire to void, reflecting detrusor overactivity; behavioral therapy precedes antimuscarinic or beta-3 agonist medication.
- Overflow incontinence
- Continuous or frequent small urine losses from bladder overdistention and retention; causes include outlet obstruction, neurogenic bladder, and anticholinergic medications.
- Elder mistreatment
- Intentional acts or omissions causing harm to an older adult, including physical, emotional, sexual, and financial abuse, neglect, and self-neglect; reporting is mandated by state law.
- POLST form
- A portable medical order documenting preferences for resuscitation, intubation, and artificial nutrition for seriously ill patients; it travels across care settings unlike an advance directive.
- Decision-making capacity
- A clinical determination that a patient can understand information, appreciate consequences, reason about options, and communicate a choice; it is task-specific.
- Cockcroft-Gault equation
- A creatinine clearance estimate using age, weight, sex, and serum creatinine; commonly used to adjust renally cleared drug doses in older adults.
- Anticholinergic burden
- The cumulative effect of medications blocking acetylcholine, linked to cognitive decline, falls, constipation, and urinary retention; scales such as the ACB quantify it.
- Orthostatic hypotension
- A drop in blood pressure of at least 20 mmHg systolic or 10 mmHg diastolic within three minutes of standing; common in older adults and increases fall risk.
- A1c target in frail elderly
- A relaxed glycemic goal of about 7.5 to 8.0 percent or higher for older adults with multimorbidity, functional or cognitive impairment, or limited life expectancy to avoid hypoglycemia.
- FRAX tool
- A calculator estimating 10-year probability of major osteoporotic and hip fracture from clinical risk factors, with or without bone mineral density.
- Pressure injury staging
- Classification by tissue depth: stage 1 nonblanchable erythema, stage 2 partial thickness, stage 3 full thickness, stage 4 to bone or tendon, plus unstageable and deep tissue injury.
- Hospice eligibility
- Medicare Hospice Benefit generally requires a prognosis of six months or less if the illness runs its normal course, plus patient election to receive comfort-focused care.
- Acetaminophen first-line analgesia
- Preferred initial analgesic for mild to moderate musculoskeletal pain in older adults; it avoids the gastrointestinal and renal risks of chronic NSAID use.
- Atypical antipsychotic boxed warning
- A Food and Drug Administration warning that these drugs increase mortality in older adults with dementia, roughly 1.6 to 1.7 times placebo, mainly from cardiovascular and infectious causes.
- Sarcopenia
- Age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength, contributing to falls, frailty, and functional decline; managed with resistance exercise and adequate protein intake.
- Frailty phenotype
- A syndrome defined by three or more of unintentional weight loss, exhaustion, weakness, slow gait, and low activity, predicting adverse outcomes in older adults.
- Comprehensive geriatric assessment
- A multidimensional evaluation of medical, functional, cognitive, psychological, and social status that produces a coordinated care plan, often via an interdisciplinary team.
- Activities of daily living
- Basic self-care tasks such as bathing, dressing, toileting, transferring, continence, and feeding; loss triggers evaluation for supportive services and caregiver needs.
- Instrumental activities of daily living
- Higher-order tasks such as managing finances, medications, transportation, shopping, and meal preparation; decline often precedes loss of basic self-care skills.
- Mini-Cog
- A brief cognitive screen combining a three-item recall with a clock-drawing task; abnormal results prompt fuller cognitive evaluation.
- Driving fitness assessment
- Evaluation of vision, cognition, and motor function in older adults with suspected impairment, using tools such as the Clinical Dementia Rating or on-road testing.
- Deprescribing
- The systematic process of identifying and discontinuing medications when harms outweigh benefits, especially in frail older adults with limited life expectancy or polypharmacy.
- Vitamin B12 deficiency
- A reversible cause of dementia and neuropathy in older adults, often from pernicious anemia, metformin, or proton pump inhibitors; screen with serum B12 and methylmalonic acid.
- Goals-of-care discussion
- A conversation clarifying a patient's values, priorities, and acceptable quality of life to guide treatment decisions, especially near the end of life.