geriatric psychiatry tagged posts

A provider’s perspective on the limited access to mental health care

Dr. Philip R. Muskin
Professor of Psychiatry
Columbia University Medical Center

As a practicing psychiatrist and patient advocate, I strongly believe that equal treatment and quality care should apply to someone who has a chronic mental health illness, like schizophrenia or major depressive disorder, requiring ongoing therapeutic and complex medical management, just as would apply to a patient in need of cardiovascular treatment or other chronic medical issue.

I’m troubled and frustrated by the rash of recent studies finding that patients across the United States are unable to obtain a timely appointment with a local mental health provider, notably a psychiatrist, who accepts their insurance coverage. This growing problem, old news to those of us practicing in the field, is multi-faceted and a fix will require a significant commitment to change on the part of many involved in the delivery and financing of health care. Unfortunately, it’s not clear such a commitment yet exists.

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Mary Grealy
Healthcare Leadership Council

Over the past few months, debate over our nation’s healthcare system has consumed much of the air here in Washington and around the country. The government shutdown over the President’s healthcare law, and the continuing missteps we are seeing with the implementation of the healthcare.gov website have catapulted the issue to the top of mind of many Americans. But regardless of the merits of the debate from either side, so much of the noise and rhetoric has been focused on what is wrong with our healthcare system that we often discard or overlook the elements and programs that are actually working.

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Christine M. deVries
Chief Executive Officer
American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry

Care for Your Mind is an excellent example of providing needed information to the public on late life mental illness. AAGP applauds the efforts of Care for Your Mind and its efforts on public education as well as encouraging dialogue through polls and other mechanisms on these critical issues.

The results of the recent poll by Care for Your Mind on mood disorders clearly confirms the need for a well-trained health care workforce to take care of the current and future generations of older adults with mood disorders. This same conclusion was reported by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in their report released last year entitled, The Mental Health and Substance Use Workforce for Older Adults: In Whose Hands? The IOM called for immediate action to promote research and incentivize training in geriatric mental health to adequately meet the needs of an elderly population expected to rise above 70 million people by 2030. We know the need is there, but now it is time to take action. It is critical that people contact their policymakers and urge them to eliminate the gaps in services to the elderly with mental illness including mood disorders by increasing access to quality mental health care and addressing the prevalent stigma associated with these diseases. The White House took a first step when they convened a National Conference on Mental Health in June of this year, but there needs to be more. We must now advocate to the US Congress on the need for a well prepared workforce to provide quality care for the older adults with mood disorders. Following are some specific legislative proposals that have been introduced in this session of Congress:

The Care for Your Mind poll enforces the need for health care professionals with specialized training to treat those individuals with mood disorders and other late life mental illnesses. There is a bill that has been introduced into the Senate that would promote teams of health care providers with this expertise to work with primary care providers.

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David Steffens, M.D., M.H.S.
President, American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry

Just as a family with a child suffering from depression, anxiety, or any other illness would want a clinician who specializes in helping children, older adults deserve care from clinicians trained and experienced in diagnosing and treating older patients.

The mental health needs of the elderly differ from the rest of the population.

Why?

In general, older adults have more medical illnesses than younger people and may have cognitive problems that can worsen with depression and other health issues. Older individuals often suffer more losses—such as the loss of a spouse, friends, or independence—and these losses can lead to depression. Older adults may also be reluctant to discuss mental health issues, particularly concerns about memory and Alzheimer’s disease.

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