Brain Stimulation Therapies
CHAPTER 17 Brain Stimulation Therapies WHEN an older patient fails to respond to other interventions, you should consider treatments that electrically stimulate the brain, either through the direct application of…
Psychopharmacological Interventions
CHAPTER 16 Psychopharmacological Interventions WHEN seeing younger adults, mental health practitioners often struggle to convince patients to take even a single medication as part of a treatment plan. Younger adults…
Mental Health Treatment Planning
CHAPTER 18 Mental Health Treatment Planning TREATMENT plans can be understood as a regulatory requirement, one of the many chores of contemporary health care, or they can be understood as…
Psychotherapeutic Interventions
CHAPTER 15 Psychotherapeutic Interventions IN the past, mental health practitioners were taught that older patients could not participate in psychotherapy because they were too set in their ways to benefit,…
Psychosocial Interventions
CHAPTER 14 Psychosocial Interventions Stefan is a 92-year-old man with major neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer’s disease, congestive heart failure with an ejection fraction of 20%, right hip fracture with…
Psychoeducational Interventions
CHAPTER 13 Psychoeducational Interventions Psychoeducation Classes Elise is a 68-year-old woman who was diagnosed in her early 20s with bipolar I disorder, hypertension, and poorly controlled diabetes. She has responded…
Rating Scales and Alternative Diagnostic Systems
CHAPTER 12 Rating Scales and Alternative Diagnostic Systems THERE are many ways to describe and measure distress. For example, a person may speak of having an ataque de nervios, whereas…
The Mental Status Examination
CHAPTER 10 The Mental Status Examination A Psychiatric Glossary JUST as a physical examination commonly moves from head to toe, the mental status examination begins with an older adult’s outer…
A Stepwise Approach to Differential Diagnosis
CHAPTER 9 A Stepwise Approach to Differential Diagnosis A good interviewer should consider as many diagnoses as possible while investigating the nature of a person’s distress (Feinstein 1967). Although an…
