"The Internet will impact the lives of all patients young and old. Older and mature patients are no exception to this information explosion." — Dr. Takahashi

Dr. Paul Yoshio Takahashi works with elderly patients as a member of the geriatric consultative group at Mayo Clinic. He works in all medical settings, including the outpatient clinic, the nursing home and occasionally the patient's home. He is especially interested in strategies for successful aging, preventing elder abuse and mistreatment, home telemonitoring, frailty, and cognitive screening in elderly patients.

Dr. Takahashi is a consultant in the Division of Primary Care Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic. He is an associate professor of medicine at College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and a fellow of the American College of Physicians. He had a fellowship in geriatric medicine at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine from 1997 to 1998.

Dr. Takahashi cares for all of a patient's acute needs and chronic problems and focuses on specialty issues such as memory problems, safety in the home, healthy aging, proper medications and end-of-life concerns.

He sees the Internet playing a growing role in the health information field.

"Patients and their families want and expect the most up-to-date information about life, health, disease and death. Healthy aging as a concept has grown quickly over the last 20 years as we have all lived longer and hopefully better," he says. "I expect that Mayo Clinic will be a significant part of this growing movement of a healthy maturity."

Dr. Takahashi, a native of Pittsfield, Ill., joined Mayo Clinic in 1998 and is board certified in internal medicine with added qualification in geriatric medicine. He is a fellow of the American Geriatrics Society.

March 18, 2011