Fifty-nine elderly patients with clinical and neurophysiologic evidence of peripheral neuropathy were reviewed. Diabetes, alcoholism and malignancy were the important etiologic factors, but other causes of acquired neuropathy such as drugs, autoimmune disease, and acute or chronic demyelinating neuropathy continue to warrant attention. Postural hypotension associated with neuropathy occurred in three patients with diabetes and one patient with lymphoma. Prognosis for the neuropathies did not seem to be adversely affected by age.