Medicines and kidney function
Check whether medicines still help, whether doses fit kidney function, and whether side effects are causing falls, confusion, constipation, or dizziness.
Otherwise healthy around 80
Health checks at 80.
At 80, the best care is personal. Tests should support independence, comfort, mobility, cognition, medication safety, and goals, not chase every possible abnormality.
Main idea
Do the checks that can change care. Do not collect tests for the sake of collecting tests.
The useful review is less about finding every silent disease and more about preventing falls, medication harm, undertreated pain, isolation, nutrition problems, vision/hearing loss, and avoidable hospital admissions.
Screening decisions should ask: would this person want the biopsy, surgery, chemotherapy, colonoscopy, or surveillance that follows? If not, the test may not help.
For details on fasting, cost, risks, normal ranges, false abnormal results, and next steps, use 50tests.com.
Suggested focus
A practical checklist for this decade.
These are prompts for a clinician conversation, not a command to get every test.
Function first
Mobility, balance, continence, nutrition, teeth, hearing, vision, sleep, pain, mood, cognition, and home safety are core health checks.
Cancer screening individualized
Some healthy 80-year-olds continue selected screening; others are better served by symptom-led care and comfort-focused priorities.
Advance care planning
Document emergency contacts, substitute decision-maker, resuscitation preferences, hospital preferences, and what outcomes matter most.
Examples
Otherwise healthy example lists.
These change with family history, symptoms, and local guidelines.
Typical male checklist around 80
- BP without overtreatment
- Medicines/kidney/electrolytes if on relevant drugs
- Falls, vision, hearing, cognition
- Cancer screening only if it would change care
Typical female checklist around 80
- BP without overtreatment
- Medicines/kidney/electrolytes if on relevant drugs
- Falls, bones, vision, hearing, cognition
- Cancer screening only if it would change care