Innovative geriatric concepts for vascular medicine and vascular surgery

So far, advances in vascular surgery and geriatrics have developed largely independent of each other, and there are - unlike orthogeriatrics - hardly any overlaps in daily clinical practice. Yet in an interdisciplinary setting, geriatric concepts might be helpful in individualized indication, choice of therapy and prognosis in vascular surgery, especially in terms of old(est)-old patients (85+). Geriatric notions, such as biological age and functionality, are not sufficiently reflected by the vascular status, but have to consider other organ-specific components (e.g., immunology, musculoskeletal system) as well as psychological/neurocognitive issues and social contextual factors. Limitations to chronological age, the vascular status or paraphrasing geriatric surrogate parameters like "frailty" do not properly characterize the functional health status of old people. In the present article we follow this train of thought at the interface between vascular surgery and geriatrics using the examples of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD).