scholarly journals Higher training in old age psychiatry: a survey of senior registrars' experiences

1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 622-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Beats ◽  
Gerard Bagley ◽  
Victoria Banks ◽  
Patricia Cronin ◽  
Goedele Opdebeeck

If high quality services are to be provided for the elderly mentally ill throughout the country it is now recognised that specialist teams are needed, led by adequately trained old age psychiatrists (Wattis et al, 1981).

1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Griffiths ◽  
Bob Baldwin

A psychogeriatrician was recently given the opportunity of five sessions of speech therapy for his service. His response was that he had no need of a speech therapist as he was perfectly well able to do his own assessment of dysphasia. This attitude is perhaps understandable since there has been so little exposure to the skills of speech therapists within this clinical field. In 1985 a full-time speech therapist was appointed by Central Manchester Health Authority to be part of the multidisciplinary team working in old age psychiatry. At the time this was, to our knowledge, the first full-time position of its kind. This article reviews progress thus far and outlines the contribution of speech therapy skills to the management of the elderly mentally ill.


1988 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 428-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Gehlhaar

Psychiatric services for the elderly are evolving rapidly. The Government has recently reiterated that this area needs special attention. The reasons for upheaval are well-known: the changing age structure of the population, the historical neglect of the elderly mentally ill and a growing emphasis on community-based approaches in place of traditional institutional solutions. In the London area and elsewhere, adjustment has been complicated by geographical transplantation from old suburban mental hospitals to locally situated units, often within district general hospitals. New specialist services also suffer from the effects of financial stringency and inadequate recruitment. These and other changes have ensured that the process of restructuring services has been difficult. Planners have had few precedents to fall back on, and have been heavily dependent on available guidelines. There has been comparatively little information available about how effectively services work in practice.


1993 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 427-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Ball

In 1961 Shaw & Macmillan claimed that there was no doubt of the value of the day hospital as an “alternative to in-patient care and prophylaxis” for the elderly mentally ill (EMI). Thirty years later the day hospital remains central to many EMI services. During these years little has been done to evaluate this method of service delivery against other models of service provision.


2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
I O Nnatu ◽  
F Mahomed ◽  
A Shah

The population of the elderly in most developed nations is on the increase. Furthermore, the prevalence of mental disorder amongst elderly offenders is high. The true extent of `elderly' crime is unknown because much of it goes undetected and unreported. This leads to a failure to detect mental illness in such offenders. Court diversion schemes may improve recognition of mental illness but these schemes usually tend to deal with the more severe crimes. This may result in an overestimation of the amount of serious crime committed by the elderly and a failure to detect mental illness amongst those who commit less serious crimes. Efforts to service this hidden morbidity call for multi-agency collaboration. Improved detection and reporting of crimes is essential if mental health difficulties in the elderly are not to go unnoticed. The needs of elderly mentally-disordered offenders are complex and fall within the expertise of old age and forensic psychiatry, without being adequately met by either one. Therefore, consideration should be given to the development of a tertiary specialist forensic old-age psychiatry service.


2002 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Murray ◽  
Robin Jacoby

This article aims to provide a practical overview concentrating on civil legal aspects of psychiatric care for the elderly. We limit ourselves to English law (which also has jurisdiction in Wales; Scottish and Northern Irish law may be similar, but not identical). Civil law can, in turn, be divided into statute law (legislation provided by Parliament) and common law (the UK, unlike some European countries, has a strong tradition of law based on previous rulings by judges).


1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 612-613
Author(s):  
Stephen Dover ◽  
Christopher McWilliam

The co-existence of physical and psychiatric illness in so much of the elderly population poses diagnostic and therapeutic problems for psychiatrists, geriatricians and general practitioners alike, with the presence of physical illness strongly influencing and sometimes limiting the options for treatment of the psychiatric illness. Recognition of this has resulted in the Section of Old Age Psychiatry of the Royal College of Psychiatrists recommending that senior registrar training in old age psychiatry should include a one month attachment to an approved geriatric medicine unit.


1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-16
Author(s):  
Dawn Black ◽  
Elspeth Guthrie ◽  
David Jolley

The old age psychiatrist's role has been evocatively described as “physician to the soul of the elderly”. A more practical definition is psychiatrist to patients over the age of 65 with both functional and organic illnesses.


1989 ◽  
Vol 155 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan M. Benbow

Electroconvulsive therapy is an important treatment in the depressive states of late life, and there is general agreement about the indications for its use in old age psychiatry. Indeed, old age may be associated with a better response to ECT than that in younger age groups. The additional risk involved through physical problems in the elderly is not great when compared with that of continuing depression and of the side-effects of alternative treatments. Temporary memory disorders and confusion may occur, but are minimised if unilateral electrode placement is used. Some patients treated with unilateral ECT do not respond, but will respond to bilateral treatment. Anxiety over unwanted treatment effects, which can lead to ineffective treatment of depressive illness, must be outweighed by knowledge of the dangers of leaving depression untreated in old age.


1994 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 541-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Oppenheimer ◽  
Gwen Adshead ◽  
Jeanette Smith

Patients and their relatives sometimes make what to others appear to be unfortunate decisions. In this paper the ethical dilemmas raised by such decisions in the context of old age psychiatry are examined. The case also raises questions about financial responsibility for the care of the elderly and suggests that the health needs of patients can no longer be separated from their financial interests.


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