Introduction to the psychiatry of advanced and late life
Mariana Arnaudova-Zhekova
Date: 2015,
Page: 303,
Steno publishing house
Gerontology studies social, the psychological ones, cognitive and the biological ones aspects of aging. Thus, gerontology is built as a systematic scientific and practical field, the elements of which are the biological aspects of the aging of organisms, geriatrics (a branch of medicine that studies the health aspects of aging), geragogy (a branch of pedagogical sciences that studies the specifics of learning in adults), social gerontology (a branch of sociology and social psychology studying various aspects of the social behavior of various groups of elderly people).
Geriatrics or more geriatric medicine [1] is a branch of medicine that studies the occurrence, development, treatment and prevention of the diseases in the elderly.
Geriatrics (from Greek: geron - old man and iatreia - treatment) Science of diseases of the elderly and old people: diagnosis, characteristic course, treatment, methods of social rehabilitation. The subject of geriatrics are both diseases starting in earlier age periods and specific gerontological diseases. Geriatrics deals with problems mainly from the fields of internal medicine, orthopedics, neurology and psychiatry (geront-psychiatry). On the other hand Gerontology is the science that deals with the study of aging processes in all their aspects. Geriatrics should in no way be confused with palliative medicine, which aims to help people in the final stages of an incurable disease to go away (die) in a dignified way. Geriatrics, on the other hand, is called to help the elderly and the very old to lead a better life. The geriatrician intervenes mostly in cases of multiple diseases (multimorbidity) that exceed the abilities of doctors of a given medical specialty due to their numerous interrelationships, but only in a situation where there is an opportunity to improve the patient's condition. Therefore, geriatrics should be understood as an interdisciplinary scientific field.
The problems of aging and the multifaceted changes that occur in people in old and late age have been the subject of research, attempts at definition, and generalization for centuries.
Regardless of the numerous serious scientific developments and accumulated knowledge, also related to the powerful development of modern medicine, the creation of a comprehensive concept for a number of general and particular aspects in the field of gerontological psychiatry is still a very difficult task. The need to accumulate serious and in-depth clinical knowledge, irrevocably connected and compared with fundamental research achievements is dictated by the problems of modern society. The global population is aging. Addressing the demographic challenges ranks among the three main political and social priorities of the European Union.
