A geriatric day hospital: the Sunnybrook experience.

A review of the first 7 years of experience with the geriatric day hospital at Sunnybrook Medical Centre in Toronto revealed the following about the patients attending the day hospital during that time: most were 60 to 79 years old; over 85% attended 1 or 2 days a week; more than two thirds lived with a spouse or relatives; and more than half had diseases of the circulatory system or mental disorders. The day hospital offers a varied therapeutic program while easing the demands on the energy and time of the patient's spouse or family and thus helps the elderly to remain in the community rather than live in an institution. The experience at Sunnybrook has shown that geriatric day hospitals can be a valuable component of the broad spectrum of integrated services and programs that must be developed to provide adequate health care for the growing number of older people in our population.