Scientific and medical disciplines, respectively, concerned with all aspects of health and disease in the elderly and with the normal aging process.
Gerontology is concerned primarily with the changes that occur between maturity and death and with the factors that influence these changes. It addresses the social and economic effects of an aging population and the physiological and psychological aspects of aging to learn about the aging process and possibly minimize disabilities. Geriatrics deals with prevention and treatment of diseases once assumed to be inevitable in the elderly. See also aging .