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Treatment Patterns in Psychiatry: Relationships to Symptom Features and Aging
Author(s) -
FRACCHIA JOHN,
SHEPPARD CHARLES,
MERLIS SIDNEY
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
journal of the american geriatrics society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.992
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 1532-5415
pISSN - 0002-8614
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-5415.1973.tb00858.x
Subject(s) - medicine , incidence (geometry) , physical illness , psychiatry , regimen , gerontology , cognition , physics , optics
Examination of the therapeutic regimens used in treating 89 long‐term hospitalized male psychiatric patients in two groups (age 60 or older, and age 59 or younger) indicated that fewer psychotropic drugs were used in the older group (N = 45) even though both groups presented the same symptom picture, qualitatively and quantitatively, in interview and self‐report situations. This tendency to prefer a non‐drug treatment regimen in the older group did not appear to be due to the presence of a greater incidence of somatic illness, as both groups showed an equal frequency of concurrent physical illness. The data are interpreted as indicating that older patients are treated differently because they are perceived differently by the staff, most likely as a result of energy depletion and the diminished ability to act out their symptoms, associated with increasing age.