"The Elderly" is the third monograph in a series on management and treatment in major patient groups and subspecialties. Each book is complete in its own right. The whole series, however, has fill a gap between standard text-books of medicine been prepared to and therapeutics and research reviews, symposia and original arti­ cles in specialist fields. The aim of the series is to present up-to-date authoritative advice on patient management with particular refer­ ence to drug treatment. The first two volumes in the series, on gastrointestinal diseases and rheumatic diseases, were addressed to major therapeutic areas or subspecialties. The present volume, "The Elderly", is intended to provide overall guidance on the manage­ ment of a range of medical problems in elderly patients. The elderly make up an increasing proportion of the population and require a substantial proportion of health care resources. The management of elderly patients falls not only upon specialist geriatricians but also upon a range of others, including general practitioners, general physicians and almost all other medical specialists with the excep­ tion of paediatricians. It has become apparent in recent years that the management of disease in the elderly in general and drug treatment in particular presents new problems and challenges. Some of these relate to the wide spectrum of disease in elderly patients, in whom there is often multiple pathology, while others concern age-induced changes in drug handling or drug effect.