Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment
What CGA is - and is not
Define CGA as a multidimensional, multidisciplinary and iterative clinical process. Distinguish CGA from a clerking template, screening tool or one-off assessment.
Learning objectives
• Define CGA as a multidimensional, multidisciplinary and iterative clinical process. • Distinguish CGA from a clerking template, screening tool or one-off assessment. • Explain why assessment must lead to a prioritised integrated care plan. • Describe how person-centred goals and follow-up are built into CGA.
Learner handbook (PDF)
Open source ↗Why this module matters
CGA is commonly reduced to a checklist. This module establishes the course premise that value comes from integration, action and review.
Core teaching
CGA is best understood as an intervention, not a form. It combines multidimensional assessment, multidisciplinary interpretation, prioritisation, action and review. The BGS current CGA Hub frames CGA around physical, psychological, functional, social, environmental and future-wishes domains, but the domains overlap and must be integrated rather than completed in silos.
A routine medical clerking can identify diagnoses without establishing how illness interacts with mobility, cognition, medicines, home circumstances, goals and recovery potential. CGA closes that gap by asking what matters, what is reversible, what threatens independence, what burden treatment creates and who will own each action.
The educational test is therefore not whether a learner can name six domains. It is whether they can turn information into an individualised, coordinated and reviewable plan.
Case step
At first assessment Mrs Morgan has fever, confusion, postural symptoms and pain after a fall. The first CGA question is not “Which form do we complete?” but “What immediate risks and reversible problems are present, what was her baseline, and what matters to her?”
Interactive element
Drag-and-drop exercise: sort statements into “CGA process”, “routine assessment” and “not sufficient for CGA”. Then build the first three priorities for Mrs Morgan.
Practice points
- Document baseline as well as current state.
- Use collateral information when history is incomplete.
- Convert every important finding into an action or explicit decision not to act.
- State uncertainty rather than disguising it as a score.
- Name ownership and review whenever the plan crosses teams or settings.
Reflection prompt
What feature distinguishes CGA from a long assessment form in your own clinical setting?
