The Department of Veterans Affairs Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Centers

Nearly 14 million Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II. In the early 1970s, the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the Veterans Administration (VA) (since 1988, the Veterans Health Administration [VHA] of the Department of Veterans Affairs) recognized that within 2 decades this cohort of veterans would be confronting its health system with an unprecedented challenge: addressing the health care needs of a population in which 30%, 40%, or even 50% of the patients were aged > 65 years.