## 3 Geriatric Assessment Survey  
Because aging is a heterogeneous process, and understanding a patient's functional age as opposed to their chronological age is an essential part of cancer-treatment decisions, a geriatric assessment survey for oncologists has been developed. Since cancer therapy often involves substantial risks, consideration of the risk-to-benefit ratio of cancer therapy plays an important part in the treatment decision-making process.  
Prior studies have shown that older adults derive similar benefits from chemotherapy as do younger adults, but they are at increased risk for side effects ([PERSON] _et al._ (2007) [9], [PERSON] _et al._ (2011) [10], and [PERSON] _et al._ (2012) [11]). The challenge is to characterize these risks, identify areas of vulnerability, develop interventions to address these areas of vulnerability, and tailor treatment decisions based on the risks identified. A geriatric assessment can help to fill this need by providing a comprehensive overview of the individual's daily functioning, memory, social support, psychological state, nutritional status, and other medical conditions ([PERSON] _et al._ 2014) [12]).  
One of the main barriers to performing a comprehensive geriatric assessment in daily oncology practice is the time and resources required. To address this barrier, an abbreviated geriatric assessment has been developed. The shorter assessment consists of reliable geriatric assessment measures that can, for the most part, be completed by patients themselves. A study by [PERSON] _et al._ (2011) [10] utilized the abbreviated assessment along with tumor, treatment and laboratory data to develop a predictive model of severe chemotherapy side effects in older adults with cancer.  
There is value to obtaining the comprehensive geriatric assessment results as well as to completing the abbreviated assessment for the predictive model since they serve different yet complementary purposes. The predictive model provides a numerical value which predicts the risk of chemotherapy toxicity while the comprehensive geriatric assessment provides a summary of the patient's overall health status and identifies areas of vulnerability for which interventions may be considered.  
There are limits to a paper and pencil approach of obtaining geriatric assessment information. First, a healthcare provider must take the time to review and score the measures, summarize the assessment results, identify areas of vulnerability, and propose targeted interventions. Furthermore, from the patient's perspective, some questions in the assessment may be redundant, depending on how they answered a prior question. For example, the geriatric assessment includes questions regarding a range of functional abilities, including whether someone can bathe independently all the way to whether they are able to run. If a patient responds that they cannot bathe independently, it is highly unlikely that they can run and so that question could be skipped, thus both shortening the number of items in the assessment as well as tailoring the assessment to the person.  
In order to address the need for individualizing the comprehensive geriatric assessment, a computerized version is being developed. The current phase of development calls for statistical guidance on how to streamline the assessment based on a patient's prior responses, and further, development of useful reports to summarize the information and highlight potential interventions. The work in this paper addresses the first of these two needs.