The Road Less Travelled: The Inpatient Geriatric-Psychiatric Option

By Jason Young, MS

(Editor’s Note: On a regular basis we invite family caregivers and health care professionals to pen a guest blog. Today, Jason Young, one of our product reviewers, shares his insights to help take away the stigma of using a geriatric psychiatric unit to help your care recipient.)

Making the decision to admit a care recipient to a geriatric psychiatric unit can be extremely difficult and emotionally devastating for families. Unfortunately, those who never choose to make the difficult decision to do so can never feel the relief from improvements that can come as a result of making such a commitment for change.

Family caregivers often recognize the need for such treatment, though may avoid admitting to themselves just how bad things have gotten. This avoidance often leads to worsening of problems that can be more easily resolved if the family follows their intuition—the current situation calls for the expertise of trained professionals.

For instance, a situation in which a care recipient experiencing a substantial decrease in appetite and sleep quickly can become life-threatening. A care recipient diagnosed with major depression who shows a sudden decrease in appetite may benefit greatly from an evaluation of his or her antidepressant medications. Often, specialists can prescribe medications that have strong appetite stimulating properties in addition to their psychotropic effects.

A person diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease may do fairly well for a few years and then  become more agitated and uncooperative with care, sometimes refusing medications. If the complete refusal of medications continues for long, numerous complications can occur. Many times, adjustments can be made to memory enhancing meds and anti-psychotics that can be of great help. Other times, untreated depression and/or anxiety can be addressed accordingly.

These aforementioned examples certainly do not encompass the hundreds of differing treatment scenarios that occur that make a geriatric physh unit a solution. Positive results can be reached in a short amount of time within an intensive psychiatric program–a huge benefit to the care recipient and family caregiver.

Consider acute intensive psychiatric treatment an option when the care recipient’s primary physician and/or psychiatrist has been unable to stabilize the patient on an outpatient basis. Treatment at an inpatient unit allows a specialist the opportunity to evaluate the care recipient for needed changes to their medications.

Great things can happen in these facilities, which is why geriatric psychiatric units are a resource to keep in a family caregiver’s tool box of help.

Jason Young

About Jason: Jason has 10 years experience with serving seniors in several capacities. He currently works as a geriatric clinician, marketer, and speaker for a health care company and geriatric inpatient psychiatric unit. Jason has a Bachelors Degree in Social Work and a Masters in Community Agency Counseling. For more of his articles, please visit http://jasonyoung99.wordpress.com.

Resources

An Interview with a Geriatric Psychiatrist

Depression in the Elderly

Talking with Your Doctor

Resources for Managing Dementia’s Difficult Behaviors