Monday 29 September 2014

Alcohol-related mental health problems are a huge issue for older people

Alcohol-related mental health problems are a huge issue for older people Tony Rao, a community psychiatrist, spends his days managing vulnerable older people who may be at risk of self-harm.

The first thing that I do when I wake up is take a look at my BlackBerry. We have patients under the home-treatment team, which means that there can be a crisis at any time of the day or night that requires urgent attention. Once Ive finished that, I plan my travel for the morning, looking at bus routes to home visits. These visits can take far longer than other medical assessments. Assessments of older people with mental health problems generally take between 60 and 90 minutes, as aspects of both mental and physical health need to be covered.

Once back at my community mental health team, I check my caseload using an electronic patient record system, to check on the progress of patients currently on in-patient wards and to update myself on events for community patients within the past 12 hours. Continue reading... The Guardian

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