Geriatrics Neurology

Geriatrics Neurology

Introduction

The people living in towards world are rapidly aging, the stats of the year 2000 says that the percentage of the world's population who was above the age of 65 was almost 7% which makes it about 420 million people living at that time. These figures are expected to increase to around 1.3 billion by the end of 2050. This age group will comprise of the elderly population who is moving fast and growing out old like every other population group, but the point of concern that needs attention and intervention by this age group is the causes that leads to disability and illness in this specific population. Due to this reason this geriatric age group demands more medical attention and health care than any other group and the cost incurred to provide them with stable health care system has increased exponentially during the this decade. The increase is still expected to increase during the 21st century as well (AA, 2013).

Geriatrics deals with the human beings falling in the old age period and the problems and disabilities which occur in the human beings due to old age. Most of the geriatric population or the people who are termed as elderly patients are more likely to suffer from neurological problems and are highly prone to develop psychiatric disorders. The main reason which leads to these problems is the chemical imbalance in the brain, psychological changes in the body due to age and other contributing factors due to deteriorating age and health.

Discussion

Geriatric neurology is defined as a set of geriatric concerned issues related to the mental, psychiatric, and cognitive disorders. It deals with the problems like memory loss, dementia, schizophrenia, numbness, weakness, stroke, Parkinson disease and many other neurological problems. Alzheimer's and seizures are also very common among the geriatric patients in US. The elderly people are more prone to develop neurological and psychiatric disabilities due to decrease in developmental activities and increased in aging process of the brain, cerebral pathologies, decrease in physical health and vigor. Socio economic factors like loss of the partner, breakdown of family support system, loss of friends and social circle, economic dependency on the others are all major contributors in initiating mental disturbances in the elderly. Elderly patients who are hospitalized for medical attention or referred to primary care show high percentage of mental disorders, the collective data shows that 81% of the residents are usually been treated for mental disorders, 40% among them have psychiatrics issues are require long term nursing care in hospitalized as well as home care settings.

Three types of disorders are important to discuss under Geriatric neurology:Mood Disorders and Depression

Depression and mood disorders are very prevalent among geriatric patients and they are the most common forms of mental disorders affecting almost 25% of the people once or on regular basis during the life time. Psychosis is a more serious outcome of early depression and the adverse effects are increase in the course of illness, relapse and continuous onset ...