Warning on elderly mental health.Cases of mental illness among the elderly will rise sharply over the next 30 years, and the current health-care system is ill-equipped to deal with this surge, according to according toprep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a consensus statement of geriatric and mental-health professionals published in the September ARCHIVES OF GENERAL PSYCHIATRY Archives of General Psychiatry is a monthly professional medical journal published by the American Medical Association. Archives of General Psychiatry publishes original, peer-reviewed articles about psychiatry, mental health, behavioral science and related fields. . The number of people in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. older than 65 years with psychiatric disorders will reach 15 million in 2030, estimate the statement's authors, led by psychiatrist Dilip V. Jeste of the University of California, San Diego UCSD is consistently ranked among the top ten public universities for undergraduate education in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.[3] It is a Public Ivy. [1] For graduate studies, most of UCSD's Ph.D. . About 6 million elderly people met criteria for mental disorders in 1990. A number of trends point to "an upcoming crisis in geriatric mental health," Jeste and his colleagues assert. First, improved physical health among mentally ill young adults allows many more to reach old age than would have just a few decades ago. Second, a rapidly expanding population of elderly citizens will provide a growing number of candidates for late-life mental ailments. Third, researchers suspect that aging baby boomers will prove more susceptible to depression, anxiety disorders Anxiety disorders A group of distinct psychiatric disorders characterized by marked emotional distress and social impairment, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. , and substance abuse than current elders do. The consensus statement proposes that federal and private agencies jointly formulate a 15-to-25-year plan for conducting research on mental disorders among the elderly. It also recommends taking steps to improve the training of geriatric-mental-health workers. |
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