Psychiatrists Offer Recommendations to Help Older Adults With Mental Disorders

As the percentage of U.S. adults older than 65 years continues to grow, so too does the need for preventing mental illness among older adults as well as improving clinical services and outcomes for older patients with psychiatric disorders. So said psychiatrists Warren D. Taylor, M.D., M.H.Sc., of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Charles F. Reynolds III, M.D., of the University of Pittsburgh in anarticle published today inJAMA Psychiatry.“There will never be enough geriatricians, so we need collaborative approaches that allow us to improve treatment and reduce disease burden,” Taylor and Reynolds wrote. “Research in these areas requires transdisciplinary and translational team-based science, where psychiatrists and psychologis ts work with geroscientists, implementation scientists, and social scientists.”They outlined several areas of emphasis for research that could help reduce the burden of psychiatric illness in older adults:Expand suicide prevention efforts, including early identification of those at greatest risk. Despite a rise in suicide rates in other populations, older adults have the highest risk of suicide completion, they noted.Develop strategies to prevent the recurrence of psychiatric disorders such as mood and anxiety disorders, which are common in older populations.“While we have substantial information about the acute treatment of these disorders, we know far less about how to keep someone well and avoid future episodes,” they wrote.Determ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: aging Charles F. Reynolds III cognitive health general medical disorders JAMA Psychiatry mental illness mood recurrence substance use disorders suicide prevention Warren D. Taylor Source Type: research