The author analyzes contemporary demographic structures of the Czech population and outlines the prognosis of its future development. He draws attention to the marked ageing in the European context, analyzes its causes and deduces from this fact conclusions for clinical practice. The author draws attention to the actual needs not only of medical but also social services for senior citizens in general. With the prolongation of the mean life span and the increasing number of senior citizens (incl. those with multimorbidity) the necessity of knowledge of physicians--incl. non-geriatricians looking after senior citizens will increase. New geriatrics must be conceived as an interdiscipinary specialty frequently integrating other medical disciplines into team work. The author presents an outline on care of senior citizens in the Czech Republic and its goals. The meaning of modern geriatrics as a medical discipline is not nursing and terminal care but coping with the modified clinical picture of diseases and medical and social problems of senior citizens which frequently differ profoundly from those of the young and middle-aged generation or are not encountered in the latter groups. The final objective of new intervention gerontology are medical efforts to preserve for as long as possible self-sufficiency and independence of seniors; maximal possible efforts to restore the quality of life if it was impaired.

Keywords: Aged; Czech Republic; Forecasting; Geriatrics /trends/; Health Services for the Aged /organization & administration/; Humans; Population Dynamics