Clinical Manual of Geriatric Psychiatry provides the most current information on psychiatric diagnoses seen in older patients in a concise format. Each chapter is broken into easily understandable, increasingly focused sections, and contains an extensive array of tables, references, and suggested readings. Chapters include clinically relevant information and evidence-based treatments for a wide range of topics and disorders: The psychiatric interview of older adults, including history, family assessment, mental status examination, rating scales and standardized interviews, and effective communication techniques. Psychopharmacology, including information on antidepressants, psychostimulants, antipsychotic medications, mood stabilizers, anxiolytics and sedative-hypnotics, and cognitive enhancers. Diagnosis and treatment of delirium, dementia, mood disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, and substance use disorders, including coverage of definition, epidemiology, clinical features, risk factors, diagnosis and differential diagnosis, prevention and management, and treatment guidelines. Individual and group psychotherapy strategies, including individual and group-based cognitive-behavioral therapies, interpersonal psychotherapies, relaxation training, cognitive stimulation therapy, and behavioral therapies. Clinical psychiatry in the nursing home, with a focus on cognitive disorders and behavioral disturbances, depression, treatment progress in this setting, and relevant federal regulations. Written by experts in geriatric psychiatry, this clinical manual provides a much-needed "field guide" for the care of nursing home patients and older adults. Busy clinicians, as well as researchers, residents, fellows, clinical psychologists, and social workers, will find this compact volume to be of the utmost value, as will anyone seeking to update their knowledge of geriatric psychiatry.

Because limited training in geriatric psychiatry has tended to give insufficient attention to mental health care for the elderly, clinicians often need help when assessing and treating problems specific to older clients. Clinical Manual of Geriatric Psychiatry provides a single-volume reference that covers the full range of such problems, from depression to dementia. It shows that psychiatrists working with older people must sometimes be willing to play a generalist's role, combining routine medical management with psychiatric interventions or helping with social or situational problems. Drs. Spar and La Rue review the effects of aging on cognitive performance, including clinical presentations of memory loss and medication-induced symptoms of mental disorder. They offer practical guidance to help the clinician not only diagnose and treat these conditions but also address such issues as evaluating competency for informed consent. Enhanced by numerous charts and tables for easy reference, the book boasts a broad range of coverage: • Guidelines to differential diagnosis of depression -- laboratory tests, psychological tests, and symptom rating scales -- along with insights on new directions in psychotherapy, including intervention within primary care. • Assessment of both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and non-SSRIs as first-line agents for depression, citing advantages and disadvantages of specific drugs, plus advice on switching or combining antidepressants.• Discussion of the effective use of electroconvulsive therapy -- particularly the use of brief-pulse, bilateral electrode placement -- as well as experimental therapies such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and vagal nerve stimulation. • Guidance in cognitive mental status examinations and brief screening tools for dementia and Alzheimer's disease, focusing on the Mini-Mental State Exam and summarizing advanced and experimental diagnostics such as single photon emission computed tomography and positron emission tomography. • Appraisal of psychosocial therapies for patients with Alzheimer's Disease, such as behavior modification and reminiscence therapy, plus use of cholinesterase inhibitors for treatment of cognitive deficits.• Review of approaches to anxiety disorders, including differential diagnosis of phobias, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and panic disorder, with a focus on psychosocial-behavior therapy and medications of choice. With life expectancies increasing, people over 85 already constitute one of the fastest growing demographics -- and the number of older people with mental disorders is rising as well. Clinical Manual of Geriatric Psychiatry explains how working effectively with older adults requires a blending of specialized knowledge with a flexible approach to the patient -- and shows how to bring that about in daily practice.

Preceded by Clinical manual of geriatric psychopharmacology / Sandra A. Jacobson, Ronald W. Pies, Ira R. Katz. 2007.

Thoroughly updated for its Fourth Edition, this volume is the most authoritative clinical reference on the pharmacologic treatment of psychiatric disorders in elderly patients. This edition provides complete information on new psychotropic drugs, new uses for established drugs, and clinically relevant advances in the neurosciences. Four new chapters cover genes, pharmacokinetics, and their impact on prescribing; new cognitive-enhancing strategies and drugs; late-life depression and physical illness; and depression and cardiac disease in late life. The book offers detailed guidelines—including drug names, dosages, and prescribing recommendations—for pharmacologic treatment of specific disorders. Chapters include clinical vignettes and tables presenting current clinical trial data. Appendices provide succinct information on prescribing and drug interactions.

Doctors who know something about working with the elderly are in greater demand than ever before.

Here, three experienced pharmacologists offer a true "how to" guide to clinical geriatric prescribing, drawing upon their own first-hand clinical experience and reading of the literature in geriatric psychopharmacology. This concise handbook is replete with valuable advice for day-to-day clinical practice.

"Essentials of Geriatric Psychiatry" is organized into sections devoted to the basic science underlying geriatric psychiatry and to the evaluation, presentation, and treatment of psychiatric disorders occurring in later life. Each chapter closes with a Key Points summary to reinforce the core issues addressed within the text.