[Gerontopsychiatric problems in a consultation-liaison practice].

UNLABELLED: The most effective way for the diagnosing and the treatment of psychopathological symptoms appearing in non-psychiatric hospitalized patients is the utilization of consultation-liaison psychiatry. With the increasing number of the elderly patients, number of appearing gerontopsychiatric problems in consultation work is also growing.

AIM: We have studied among the patients of a consultation-liaison service the problems which led to the psychiatric consultations, the diagnoses which were set up, the concomitant somatic disorders and the treatment recommendations.

METHOD: We have retrospectively studied the data of the patients in the consultation-liaison service of St. László Hospital.

RESULTS: 77% of the consultations were asked from internal medicine. Most frequent reason of the requests were the presence of any psychiatric symptom, but unexplained somatic complains were also common. Gerontopsychiatric problems were most frequently associated to cardiovascular disorders. Demencia and delirium were the most frequent diagnoses. The rate of affective disorders was higher than reported in the literature.

CONCLUSIONS: Consultations were most frequently asked for non-compliance in patients with demencia, and for unexplained somatic complain in affective disorders. Most frequent reason of psychiatric referrals was symptoms of delirium. Authors try to explain these results in accordance with the literature.