New directions in mental health care for older adults -- update from Harvard Review of Psychiatry
2015-09-09
(Press-News.org) September 9, 2015 - The aging of the population, shifting diagnostic criteria, and new health care policy initiatives are some of the factors driving changes in mental health treatment for older Americans, according to the September special issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.
"Both workforce shortages and fiscal pressures have presented obstacles to caring for the behavioral needs of our elderly," according to a guest editorial by Drs. James Ellison of Christiana Care Health System, Wilmington, Del., and Brent Forester of McLean Hospital, Belmont, Mass. The special issue presents a timely update on the trends and developments leading to new directions in mental health care for older adults.
Updates on Mental Health Diagnosis and Treatment of Older Adults
Recent years have seen a phenomenal transformation in the field of geriatric psychiatry, as older adults now comprise more than 13 percent of the US population. Among other trends, the Affordable Care Act introduced measures to integrate behavioral health treatment into primary care settings, with the aim of increasing the availability and effectiveness of care.
The special issue presents seven papers by noted experts, who discuss the policy changes, new diagnostic classifications, and latest research driving change in the mental health care of older adults. Topics include:
Changes in the healthcare landscape, including nine "key initiatives" that provide opportunities for assessing and treating older adults with mental health disorders, as well as for funding outcomes-based research. Emerging technologies such as telehealth, smartphone health apps, and social media may provide new approaches to improving outcomes while reducing costs.
New diagnostic criteria, based on the recently revised DSM-5. These include the new diagnosis of "hoarding disorder"; a newly defined category of neurocognitive disorders that includes "major neurocognitive disorder" (replacing the term dementia), "mild neurocognitive disorder," (replacing mild cognitive impairment), and delirium; and other diagnostic criteria changes that will increase the accuracy of assessment of common mood disorders.
Age-related differences in the prevalence and characteristics of anxiety disorders. These symptom differences--along with the effects of accompanying medical disorders--may contribute to the challenges of assessing anxiety in older adults.
New approaches to the problem of depression in later life. A palliative care approach has gained increasing support among caregivers who treat terminal disorders in the elderly. Instead of emphasizing the aggressive search for curative treatments, palliative care prioritizes quality of life, a change in focus that often leads to longer survival as well as greater comfort.
The many and varied causes of psychosis--often related to underlying medical or neurological conditions. New evidence on the appropriate use of antipsychotic medications in older patients with neurocognitive, psychotic, or mood disorders is summarized as well.
An in-depth focus on the new DSM-5 category of "mild neurocognitive disorder." While more research is needed to clarify this new diagnostic category, it reflects the growing emphasis on early recognition and treatment of cognitive impairment.
Management of behavior changes and neuropsychiatric symptoms in older adults with Alzheimer's disease or other neurocognitive disorders. Alternatives to antipsychotic medications, including nondrug approaches, may provide urgently needed new treatments.
Drs. Ellison and Forester believe their special issue will provide "both scholarly and practical information for geriatric specialists and generalists interested in the care of older adults." They conclude, "The reader of these reviews will come to appreciate how research into the pathophysiology of behavioral disorders in later life is helping to suggest more specific and effective treatment approaches and, indeed, deepening our understanding of mental health and illness throughout the life cycle."
INFORMATION:
Click here to read this special issue.
About the Harvard Review of Psychiatry
The Harvard Review of Psychiatry is the authoritative source for scholarly reviews and perspectives on a diverse range of important topics in psychiatry. Founded by the Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry, the journal is peer-reviewed and not industry sponsored. It is the property of Harvard University and is affiliated with all of the Departments of Psychiatry at the Harvard teaching hospitals. Articles encompass all major issues in contemporary psychiatry, including (but not limited to) neuroscience, psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, history of psychiatry, and ethics.
About Wolters Kluwer
Wolters Kluwer is a global leader in professional information services. Professionals in the areas of legal, business, tax, accounting, finance, audit, risk, compliance and healthcare rely on Wolters Kluwer's market leading information-enabled tools and software solutions to manage their business efficiently, deliver results to their clients, and succeed in an ever more dynamic world.
Wolters Kluwer reported 2014 annual revenues of €3.7 billion. The group serves customers in over 170 countries, and employs over 19,000 people worldwide. The company is headquartered in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. Wolters Kluwer shares are listed on NYSE Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) and are included in the AEX and Euronext 100 indices. Wolters Kluwer has a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt program. The ADRs are traded on the over-the-counter market in the U.S. (WTKWY).
Wolters Kluwer Health is a leading global provider of information and point of care solutions for the healthcare industry. For more information about our products and organization, visit http://www.wolterskluwerhealth.com, follow @WKHealth or @Wolters_Kluwer on Twitter, like us on Facebook, follow us on LinkedIn, or follow WoltersKluwerComms on YouTube.
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-09-09
September 9, 2015 - Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome that causes major disruption in several areas of life for many women. Many treatment options have been proposed, but which are most effective? A comprehensive review of the evidence, including specific treatment guidelines, is presented in the September Journal of Psychiatric Practice, published by Wolters Kluwer.
"Given the debilitating symptoms and impact associated with PMDD, health care professionals need to be able to identify and effectively treat patients with ...
2015-09-09
A team of physicists has taken pictures of a theorized but previously undetected magnetic wave, the discovery of which offers the potential to be an energy-efficient means to transfer data in consumer electronics.
The research, which appears in the journal Physical Review Letters, was conducted by scientists at New York University, Stanford University, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
"This is an exciting discovery because it shows that small magnetic waves--known as spin-waves--can add up to a large one in a magnet, a wave that can maintain its shape as ...
2015-09-09
Patients with liver failure could benefit from a treatment that helps the immune system to combat infections linked to the condition, research suggests.
A study in mice has revealed that treatment with an immune-boosting molecule called CSF-1 helps to trigger the body's natural defence mechanisms in the liver.
Researchers say that if the therapy proves successful in patients, it could help those who are unsuitable for a liver transplant.
Patients with liver failure are highly prone to serious infections that can lead to sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition ...
2015-09-09
Brain plasticity is the ability of the brain to change both anatomically and functionally in response to changes in the body or in the environment.
For many years, researchers believed that the brain did not suffer major changes after childhood. Although brain plasticity predominates in the first years of life, research done in the last 30 years has shown that it may also occur in adulthood, continuing to change through learning. Brain plasticity may also occur following injury, amputation or nerve damage.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, can be traced back ...
2015-09-09
In a deception that likely has evolved over thousands of years, a caterpillar that feeds on corn leaves induces the plant to turn off its defenses against insect predators, allowing the caterpillar to eat more and grow faster, according to chemical ecologists in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.
The finding is one more revelation about the myriad of chemical signals that pass between plants and insects that scientists at Penn State and around the world have been discovering in recent years. In this case, the agent of deceit is the caterpillar's feces, or ...
2015-09-09
Organic electronics has many advantages: it is inexpensive, flexible and lightweight. In terms of applications, we are only limited by our imaginations. There has been a lot of development in polymers since the phenomenon of conducting and semi-conducting plastics was discovered and in 2000 awarded a Nobel Prize. Their weakness is still speed; plastics conduct a charge slowly, compared to silicon, for instance.
A polymer consists of long chains of hydrocarbon, where other elements are bound, which give the particular plastic its properties. Research is underway, and researchers ...
2015-09-09
An effective smart phone application should make data collection easy, but not so easy that the user forgets to access and reflect on that information, according to a team of researchers.
People who accessed a sleep monitoring app through a small display window -- often called a widget -- on an Android smart phone were more likely to manually enter their diary information, as well as interact with that data than users who monitored their sleep without the feature, according to Eun Kyoung Choe, assistant professor of information sciences and technology, Penn State.
"As ...
2015-09-09
Amsterdam, September 9, 2015 - A bioelectronic nose that mimics the human nose can detect traces of bacteria in water by smelling it, without the need for complex equipment and testing. According to a study published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics the technology works by using the smell receptors in the human nose.
The sensor is simple to use and it can detect tiny amounts of contamination in water, making it more sensitive than existing detection methods. The authors of the study, from Seoul National University, say this could make the technology even more useful in ...
2015-09-09
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Booster seat-aged children are twice as likely to suffer serious injury or death in a car crash than younger children but a new study shows they may be less likely to have car seats inspected for proper use.
Less than a quarter of car seat and booster checks analyzed in the new University of Michigan Health System study were conducted in children ages four and older at car seat inspection stations in Michigan. Just 1 in 10, or 11 percent of inspections, covered booster seat-age children ages 4-7 while half were for rear-facing car seats.
The findings, ...
2015-09-09
Despite all the shortened words and slang seen on Twitter, it turns out that people follow many of the same communication etiquette rules on social media as they do in speech. Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology shows that when tweeters use hashtags -- a practice that can enable messages to reach more people -- they tend to be more formal and drop the use of abbreviations and emoticons. But when they use the @ symbol to address smaller audiences, they're more likely to use non-standard words such as "nah," "cuz" and "smh." The study also found when people ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] New directions in mental health care for older adults -- update from Harvard Review of Psychiatry
