The world has witnessed significant demographic changes over the last few years, particularly with regards to the increase in the number of elderly people. These changes will certainly have far-reaching consequences for the health sector. Advanced countries in Western Europe which, in the past have had the largest populations of elderly people, are now being overtaken by the developing world. In Latin America, for instance, between 1980 and the year 2025, the total population is expected to grow by 217%. In Chile, the proportion of those aged 60 or more will grow from 10% to 16% in the next 20 years, that is to say from 1.550.000 to 3.003.000 people.
Mental health problems are common in this age group and represent a huge challenge for the health services. In Chile, a recent epidemiological study showed a prevalence of 23.9% for depressive symptoms, and of 6.9% for severe depression, whereas a 9.1% of the sample was described as suffering with a significant cognitive impairment. Unfortunately, the increase in the number of mental health professionals has been slow and runs behind the real needs. This is evident not only in the developing world, but also in countries like the US.
A recent informal inquiry among my colleagues in Latin America has revealed that most countries (if not all of them) lack of a national framework for postgraduate education in psychogeriatrics. Interestingly, the care of mental health problems among doctors has been taken up not only by psychiatrists but by a wide range of specialists, including geriatricians, neurologists, internists, etc. This has allowed the development of different centers, most of them in populated cities and related to academic units, where old age people with mental disorders are being treated by a multidisciplinary team. These centers have also developed postgraduate teaching which ranges from a Msc and PhD to clinical teaching activities for trainees in psychiatry and other specialties. This is also true for Chile, where geriatricians have been able to establish their units at least in the main academic centers. Psychogeriatricians are still very few and somewhat marginal in comparison to adult an even child psychiatry.
This situation is, however, about to change since trainees in psychiatry have started to participate more actively in recently created old age psychiatry outpatient clinics.
Back to S032 Where is the Geriatric Psychiatry in Psychiatry Training? An International Perspective
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