MIS‐ASSIGNMENT OF GERIATRIC PATIENTS TO A STATE MENTAL HOSPITAL *

A bstract : New admission criteria at the Bronx State Hospital exclude patients with non‐psychotic organic brain syndrome, mild psychoses or mild psychoneuroses. Thus an intensive psychiatric geriatric program was started consisting of chemotherapy; individual and group psychotherapy; family, recreational, and occupational therapy; and necessary medical attention. The comunity gradually is being educated successfully to accept the new policy. Nevertheless, because of outside influences, 66 patients who did not meet the new criteria had to be admitted during the period October 1, 1967 through September 30, 1969. In this study, these 66 are compared with a control group of 82 patients who met our admission criteria during the same period. Included are data on sex, marital status, age, method of referral, diagnoses, and results of therapy. The findings indicate that patients in the 65–69 age group, rather than the 70+ group, are the ones whom the community tries to “dump.” The patients who were admitted but did not meet the criteria had much more insight into their condition than those who met the criteria. Those who were admitted without meeting the criteria fared much more poorly in regard to duration of hospital stay, convalescent status, discharge status, and mortality rate. The improper placement of geriatric patients in a state mental hospital with a modern therapeutic geriatric psychiatric program is detrimental to these patients, and is a grievous error for all concerned.