Title : Neurologic Disorders in the Geriatric Psychiatry Context: an Anatomy of Care
Abstract:
The geriatric patient’s neurological disease is often accompanied by psychiatric and behavioral symptoms which confound the diagnostic process and complicate medical treatment and its delivery. An aged patient is often at the nexus of systemic medical, psychiatric, psychosocial problems which contribute to symptoms that are often difficult, if not impossible, to parse and to address. Conditions such as major neurocognitive disorders with behavioral disturbance, chronic pain, sleep disorders, depressive disorders, anxiety, and legal/capacity issues are common. Physiological aging, acute and chronic medical conditions, onset of psychiatric symptomatology, and/or exacerbation of chronic psychiatric conditions may interact with neuropathology to instigate the exacerbation and intractability of neurological disease.
This presentation will review some of the common psychiatric conditions whose symptomatology overlaps and/or exacerbates the neurological symptomatology, and offer strategies to help delineate and treat the psychiatric aspects. The evidence base to assess and manage the intertwined medical/neurological/psychiatric problems in the geriatric population is not robust. Flowcharts will be offered which review available evidence which can help with clinical decision-making.
