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We are on the verge of a crisis in mental health. Over the next 30 years the number of chronically mentally ill people 55 years of age and older will double. With multiple disorders relating to mental illness and old age, these people will require unique services from a health care system that is ill prepared to deliver them. Schizophrenia Into Later Life: Treatment, Research, and Policy is the first major multidisciplinary reference on this important topic—a landmark work for researchers, service providers, and policy makers.
Broad in scope, it discusses the demographic and clinical characteristics of older schizophrenic persons, details treatment approaches, suggests research strategies, and covers the relevant economic and health policy issues.
• The most up-to-date, comprehensive source of information on this understudied group. It will help community psychiatrists, gerontologists, psychologists, policy makers, and social scientists meet a growing demand for services.
• A multidisciplinary approach with contributing experts from fields of biological psychiatry, social psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, social work, psychology, and neuropsychology will help professionals integrate services for the best outcome.
• A primary resource on the subject—sections include epidemiology, biological aspects, psychosocial features, clinical care, and public policy.
Today there is a distressing lack of age-appropriate clinical, rehabilitative, or residential programs for older patients with chronic mental illness. Schizophrenia in Later Life: Treatment, Research, and Policy will guide researchers, service providers, and policy makers in creating innovative new programs to help this underserved and growing population.
The book is an easy read and free of jargon, and it will prove informative to mental health administrators, citizen advocates for the mentally ill, and mental health clinicians. It will be important also to many general physicians who attend the elderly, especially in nursing facilities. In a book this broad, integration across topics is difficult, but in the final chapter Cohen draws from the field of gerontology to provide an integrative model that may be used to guide future research.
— William T. Carpenter, M.D.
Carl I. Cohen, M.D., is Professor and Director of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Contributors
Introduction
PART I: Epidemiology, Historical Background, Illness Phenomenology, and Diagnostic Issues
Chapter 1. Patterns of Care for Persons 65 Years and Older With Schizophrenia
Chapter 2. Changes in Schizophrenia Across Time: Paradoxes, Patterns, and Predictors
Chapter 3. A Comparison of Early- and Late-Onset Schizophrenia
Chapter 4. Differential Diagnosis of Psychotic Disorders in the Elderly
PART II: Biological and Medical Aspects
Chapter 5. Biological Changes in Older Adults With Schizophrenia
Chapter 6. Cognitive Functioning in Late-Life Schizophrenia: Course and Correlates
Chapter 7. Medical Comorbidity in Older Persons With Schizophrenia
PART III: Gender and Sociocultural Aspects
Chapter 8. Gender Differences in Schizophrenia Across the Life Span
Chapter 9. Social Vicissitudes of Schizophrenia in Later Life
PART IV: Treatment and Service Issues
Chapter 10. What Are the Service Needs of Aging People With Schizophrenia?
Chapter 11. Use of Novel Antipsychotics in Older Patients With Schizophrenia
Chapter 12. Community-Based Treatment of Schizophrenia and Other Severe Mental Illnesses
Chapter 13. Biobehavioral Treatment and Rehabilitation for Older Adults With Schizophrenia
Chapter 14. Changing Caregiving Needs as Persons With Schizophrenia Grow Older
Chapter 15. Mental Health Policy and Financing of Services for Older Adults With Severe Mental Illness
PART V: Future Directions
Chapter 16. Toward the Development of Theory and Research in Aging and Schizophrenia
Index