Range of Mental Illness Among the Elderly in the Community

Abstract

A sample of 1070 elderly persons aged over 65 living in the Liverpool community was interviewed using the community version of the Geriatric Mental State (GMS) and the findings processed to provide a computerised diagnosis by AGECAT. Levels of organic disorder, probably dementia, reached 5.2%, intermediate between those of London and New York derived from previous studies. Levels for depressive illness overall were below those of other studies at 11.3% while levels for neurotic disorder were much the same at 2.4%. The rise in the prevalence of dementia with age was further confirmed. The GMS AGECAT Package provides a method for standardising both the collection of data and the diagnostic process for comparative epidemiological studies and other research.

Prevalence of Cognitive Impairment and Associated Factors among Elderly Hong Kong Chinese Aged 70 Years and Over

“…However, our study shows that this increase is still present after exclud ing all subjects with diseases, taking drugs, or having any functional disability. The female to male preponderance was observed in many other studies in Caucasians [24][25][26], although Jorm et al [22] concluded that the increased rates in women were simply an artefact of the greater age of the women studied. The two 56 Woo/Ho/Lau/Lau/Y uen Cognitive Impairment in Elderly Hong Kong Chinese Aged 70 Years and Over previous studies of Chinese in Shanghai [6] and Hong Kong [8] also confirmed the female preponderance, with a female to male ratio of 3.75, a figure similar to our study (3.98).…”

Psychiatric morbidity in cohabitants of community-dwelling elderly depressives

“…The GMS±AGECAT has been modi®ed for use in the community (Copeland et al, 1987) and this version was used in the present study. Two thousand and forty-two individuals of 65 years and over on the practice lists of GPs within our hospital catchment area were contacted by letter and asked to participate in the AGECAT prevalence study (Kirby et al, 1997).…”

The age of anxiety? It depends where you look: changes in STAI trait anxiety, 1970–2010

“…Apparent increases in anxiety may partly reflect greater reporting of psychiatric problems to interviewers. This concern is nontrivial, given increasing awareness of mental health issues in recent decades [22] and a known tendency to underreport psychiatric problems [23,24].…”