Prevention of Mental Disorder in Older Adults: Recent Innovations and Future Directions.

Abstract

As the global population is aging, increased efforts should be placed on preventing mental disorders in older adults, as opposed to just focusing on sickness and treatment. We provide an overview of existing innovations in prevention in the domains of pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, and psychosocial interventions. These programs have shown that depression and anxiety can be prevented from recurring, incidence of new disorder can be reduced, and general mental health can be promoted. We also give direction for future research to move the field of geriatric mental health prevention forward.