Clinical Manual of Geriatric Psychiatry

Book excerpt: 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.