Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:11:43.094Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Management and Nature of Depressive Illnesses in Late Life: A Follow-Through Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Felix Post
Felix Post*
Affiliation:
The Bethlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, London, S.E.5
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since the long-term results of the treatment of elderly depressives admitted to the writer's care between 1949 and 1951 were communicated (1962), further experiences (e.g. Colwell and Post, 1959; Post, 1968) have confirmed that affective illnesses in late life are associated with much subsequent mental invalidism and needs for further treatment. It was hoped that these needs might be met by increased use of out-patient and community care as well as by the introduction of thymoleptic drugs. A follow-up investigation of a further consecutive series of depressives over the age of 60 receiving inpatient treatment from the same psychiatrist in the same hospital during the years 1966–67 was undertaken with the following aims in view:

Firstly, it was intended to test the proposition that the less reluctant use of electro-convulsive therapy in old persons, as well as the introduction of antidepressant drugs and of more active after-care measures, had improved the long term outlook in the affective illnesses of late life. It was realized that a comparison of two series of patients separated from one another by some 15 years might be vitiated by differences between the samples other than those due to changed methods of treatment. It would, however, have been unethical to withhold the new forms of management from a control group.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 121 , Issue 563 , October 1972 , pp. 393 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1972 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, E. W. (1965). ‘Chairman's introductory remarks.’ Anglo-German Medical Review, 2, 707–14.Google Scholar
Carney, M. W. P., Roth, M., and Garside, R. F. (1965). ‘The diagnosis of depressive syndromes and the prediction of E.C.T. response.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 659–74.Google Scholar
Colwell, Catherine, and Post, F. (1959). ‘Community needs of elderly psychiatric patients.’ British Medical Journal, ii, 214–17.Google Scholar
Eysenck, H. J. (1970). ‘The classification of depressive illnesses.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 117, 241–50.Google Scholar
Garside, R. F., Kay, D. W. K., Wilson, I. C., Deaton, I. D., and Roth, M. (1971). ‘Depressive syndromes and the classification of patients.’ Psychological Medicine, 1, 333–8.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. (1968). The Classification of Depressive Illness. London.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. (1969). ‘The continuum model of depressive illness.’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 62, 335–9.Google Scholar
Kendell, R. E. and Gourlay, Jane (1970). ‘The clinical distinction between psychotic and neurotic depressions.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 117, 257–66.Google Scholar
Lewis, A. J. (1934). ‘Melancholia: a clinical survey of depressive states.’ Journal of Mental Science, 80, 277–378.Google Scholar
Lewis, A. J. (1971). ‘“Endogenous” and “exogenous”: a useful dichotomy.’ Psychological Medicine, 1, 191–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDonald, C. (1969). ‘Parental deprivation and psychiatric illness in old age.’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 3, 401–3.Google Scholar
Mendels, J. (1965). ‘Electro-convulsive therapy and depression. II. Significance of endogenous and reactive syndromes.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 111, 682–6.Google Scholar
Post, F. (1962). The Significance of Affective Symptoms in Old Age. London.Google Scholar
Post, F. (1968). ‘The factors of ageing in affective illness’, in Recent Developments in Affective Disorders (eds. A. Coppen, and H. Walk). British Journal of Psychiatry Special Publication No. 2.Google Scholar
Slater, E., and Roth, M. (1969). Clinical Psychiatry, 3rd edition. London.Google Scholar
Weitbrecht, H. J. (1953). ‘Offene Probleme bei affectiven Psychosen.’ Nervenarzt, 24, 187–91.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.