Admission laboratory testing in elderly psychiatric patients without organic mental syndromes: Should it be routine?

Abstract

SUMMARYThe clinical benefit of an admission screening battery of laboratory tests, electrocardiogram, electroencephalogram and chest X-ray was evaluated in a group of 227 elderly psychiatric patients without clinical evidence of dementia or other organic mental illness. Important contributions from the screening battery to clinical management were obtained only from measurement of blood glucose and thyroid function, and possibly also of red blood cell status, urinalysis and prostatic specific antigen. Given the very limited benefit of extensive screening batteries reported in the literature for psychiatric patients in general, and described in this study for elderly psychiatric patients without organic mental disorder, we suggest that such batteries should only be used in high(er) risk groups, which remain to be defined.

Letter to the Editor. Annual laboratory screening for chronic hospitalized elderly psychiatric patients? Habit or necessity?

“…Some authors advocate an extensive screening battery for all psychiatric patients on admission (Hall et a/., 1981;Kolman, 1984). More recently, others have argued for a limited number of tests (Harms and Hermans, 1994). Somatic anamnesis and physical examination should be supplemented with a limited number of laboratory tests.…”