engleski

Old age psychiatry

One of the most prominent themes in the public space in Croatia, has recently been the changing of the demographic structure, e.g. aging of the general population and the problems that this fact carries for the whole society. This phenomenon is not only found in Croatia, but in all developed countries, and is a consequence of the prolongation of life span on the one hand and the smaller number of births compared to the deaths on the other hand. In Croatia in 1961, the percentage of older people was 6.2%, ten years later it was 8.3%, in 1981 it was 10.8% and in 2001 15.62%. As we expect that by the year 2050 one third of people in the world will be older than 65, it is obvious that people in the so-called „third age" will be more represented in the daily psychiatric casuistic. Due to fact that the age of every person is the most potent risk factor for the manifestation of majority of neurocognitive disorders, we expect epidemic of dementia as well as all other psychiatric conditions like depressive, anxiety or psychotic disorders. For this reason, an increased number of experts will be needed in the future who will primarily deal with older age psychiatry. Parallel with this, it is also necessary to develop palliative medicine as it is part of comprehensive patient care and represents continuum of preventive and curative medicine. There is an increasing need to open centres of public health or mental health facilities outside large hospitals, in already existing centres which already have organized care for young people and addicts, to provide care for all psychiatric illnesses (dementia, organic depressive, anxiety, and psychotic disorders). Care should include prevention, diagnosis, treatment and counseling, both for the patients and the members of their families, including informal carers.

Psychiatry ; old age ; elderly ; aging

nije evidentirano