[Detection of psychiatric disorders in the elderly].

Abstract

The goal of this paper was to study the usefulness of standardised tests in elderly and assess the relationship among sociodemographic factors, neuropsychological indicators and psychiatric diagnosis, 40 subjects (31 women and 9 men, mean age 71.5 years, sd 6.16) who attended a primary care clinic in Santiago were interviewed using a sociodemographic interview, the Sarason's social support questionnaire, the mini mental state examination, the Goldberg health questionnaire, the Beck's inventory for measuring depression, the Wechsler adult intelligence scale and the Wechsler memory scale. Event related potentials were evoked in response to an auditory "Odd Ball" paradigm. A psychiatric interview, according ICD10 criteria gave 67.5% of psychiatric disorders. Anova analysis considering the psychiatric diagnostic groups showed significant differences for MMSE, GHQ12, BI, and WAIS. It is concluded that there is a high prevalence of psychiatric disorders and that standardised tests could be used for their detection.