Geriatrics / 08.04.2026
Geriatric Care in Plano: Express Internal Medicine Is Bridging the Gap for Aging Patients
The United States is in the midst of a demographic shift that primary care medicine cannot afford to ignore. By 2034, adults aged 65 and older will outnumber children under 18 for the first time in American history — a milestone that carries profound implications for how we deliver outpatient care. In communities like Plano, Texas, where the population has grown rapidly over the past two decades and a significant percentage of long-term residents are now entering their senior years, the gap between what aging patients need and what the healthcare system routinely provides has never been more apparent.
At Express Internal Medicine, we have built our practice around closing that gap. As a geriatric care doctor in Plano, I see firsthand how aging patients are often passed between specialists without anyone coordinating the full picture: managing polypharmacy risks, monitoring for cognitive decline, addressing mobility and fall prevention, and taking the time to understand what a patient's life actually looks like outside of a clinical encounter. Internal medicine, practised well, is where that coordination belongs.
Most news stories tend to focus on how drugs and the opioid epidemic are impacting people in their teens and early adulthood. However, I can tell you from personal experience, that there are a lot of older adults who are also abusing drugs alcohol at record rates. This is borne out at our family’s drug treatment program which I founded and run in San Diego, California.
You may be surprised to hear that the rates of opioid overdose in the U.S. have increased the most among people ages 65 and up (from 2021 to 2022) and that older adults have seen the greatest increase in cannabis use in Canada. One thing you also may not realize is that older adults have the highest recovery rates of all age groups.
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Dr. Mohyuddin[/caption]
Hira Mohyuddin, PGY-2
Psychiatry Residency Training Program
The George Washington University
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Frailty has become increasingly significant as the global population grows older, as this syndrome is linked with a higher mortality and morbidity in aging. Causes contributing to frailty are poorly understood, but it seems that the role of inflammation is very likely.
While other chronic infections were shown to precipitate and perpetuate inflammation that contributes to the development of frailty, no prior study has previously focused on possible links between Toxoplasma gondii and geriatric frailty. Benefiting from a collaboration with Spanish and Portuguese researchers, we have now tested, for the first time to our knowledge, this possible association.
Dr. Jing Li[/caption]
Jing Li, PhD
Assistant Professor of Health Economics
The Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy and Economics (CHOICE) Institute
University of Washington School of Pharmacy
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Dementia and other cognitive impairment are highly prevalent among older adults in the U.S. and globally, and have been linked to deficiencies in decision-making, especially financial decision-making. However, little is known about the extent to which older adults with cognitive impairment manage their own finances and the characteristics of the assets they manage.
