• Home
  • Geriatrics Blog
    • Helping Older Parents Posts
  • Helping Older Parents
    • Free Trainings
    • Newsletter
  • Podcast
    • Better Health While Aging Podcast
    • Helping Older Parents Podcast
  • Testimonials
  • About
    • About Better Health While Aging
    • About Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH
  • Courses & More

Better Health While Aging

Practical information for aging health & family caregivers

  • Popular Topics
    • Preventing Falls in Aging Adults
    • Medication Safety
    • Dementia, including Alzheimer’s
    • Advance Care Planning & End-of-Life
  • Why Geriatrics
  • Are you a caregiver?
  • How to use this site

27 Recommended Preventive Health Services for Older Adults: the Healthy Aging Checklist Part 5

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Aging Parents To Do List

This is the fifth in a series of posts covering the Healthy Aging Checklist, which is my list of six fundamental activities that will help any older adult maintain the best possible health while aging.

 

 

 

They are:

  • Promote brain health and emotional well-being.
  • Promote physical health.
  • Check for and address common aging health problems (such as falls, memory concerns, depression, incontinence, pain, isolation, polypharmacy).
  • Learn to optimize the management of any chronic conditions.
  • Get recommended preventive health services for older adults.
  • Address medical, legal, and financial advance care planning.

In this post, I’ll cover recommended preventive health screening guidelines and other prevention services for older adults. These are based on the recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and also on Medicare’s coverage of preventive health services.

By my count, based on the USPSTF and Medicare guidelines, there are currently 27 preventive health services that older adults should consider. I have a summary list here, and then detailed information on each service starting here.

Get Your Free Preventive Health Cheatsheet! The 27 proven preventive health services for older adults, in a handy PDF checklist that you can print or save. Includes details on who should get each service, and helpful links. Click here now.

But before you read about them, let’s go over the basics of how health screening and other preventive health services work, including why they can sometimes be harmful, or sometimes fall out of favor.

This way, when you review the list of preventive services to consider, you’ll better understand which services are likely to help, and why certain services may not be a good fit for you or your parent.

Understanding Preventive Health Services

Preventive health services essentially fall into three categories:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Aging health, Geriatrics For Caregivers Blog, Helping Older Parents Articles Tagged With: health screening tests, healthy aging, prevention

Yours Free: The Quick Start Guide to Checking Older Parents for Health & Safety Problems

Action Plan - Pencil and Checklist

Enter your email to download this free Quick Start Guide

Get The Guide Now »

No spam ever! We collect, use and process your data according to our Privacy Policy.

Find It Here

Disclaimer

The material on this site, including any exchanges in the comments section of the blog, is for informational and educational purposes only.

Any comments Dr. Kernisan may make regarding an individual’s story or comments should not be construed as establishing a physician-patient relationship between Dr. Kernisan and a caregiver, or care recipient.

None of Dr. Kernisan’s website or group information should be considered a substitute for individualized medical assessment, diagnosis, or treatment.

Please see the full Disclaimer for more information.

Please also carefully read our Terms & Conditions of Use, before using this site.

Creative Commons License
This work by Leslie Kernisan MD & Better Health While Aging LLC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at BetterHealthWhileAging.net.

Privacy Policy & Disclosures

Your privacy is very important to us. Your information will never be sold to anyone, whether you browse the site, sign up for email updates, or register for an event.

Pleae read our complete Privacy Policy for more information and for Dr. Kernisan's financial disclosures.

© 2025 Better Health While Aging, LLC · Terms & Conditions · Disclaimer · Privacy Policy · Contact Us