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Chapter 2 - Clinical Assessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2019

By
Rob Butler
Edited by
Rob Butler  and
Cornelius Katona
Rob Butler
Affiliation:
Waitemata DHB and North Shore Hospital, Auckland
Cornelius Katona
Affiliation:
Helen Bamber Foundation
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Summary

Old age psychiatry is general adult psychiatry adapted to later life, and has come into being chiefly because of the spectacular increase in the proportion of the population surviving to 65 and beyond. Many people have mental health problems for the first time in later life, partly because of vicissitudes such as bereavement and physical ill health, and partly because of pathological changes in the brain reflected in delirium and the dementias. In the 21 years since Professor Brice Pitt and I wrote the first edition of this chapter, most of the principles of good assessment are unchanged. Risk assessment has come to the fore and there is a new emphasis on measuring outcomes. The need for cultural competence is more widely recognised.

Type
Chapter
Information
Seminars in Old Age Psychiatry , pp. 15 - 26
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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