For most of human history, life expectancy was remarkably stable at about 30–40 years. Within the past 150 years, however, medical advances have virtually doubled that number. The world’s elderly population is growing at 2.4% per year, faster than the rest of the population, with disproportionate increases expected to continue as newer and better treatments are found that minimize the disabilities associated with advanced age.

Key to improving the health and quality of life of the elderly is understanding and treating the brain diseases and behavioral disorders that become highly prevalent with age. Geriatric neuropsychiatry is an integrative specialty that draws from many diverse fields, including psychiatry, neurology, neuroscience, and geriatrics. It provides expertise on how to distinguish normal age-related changes from those of disease and disordered brain function.

Edited by two eminent practitioners and educators, this wide-ranging textbook’s 41 chapters are divided into five major sections:

• Introduction to Geriatric Neuropsychiatry—Introduces the field, including the epidemiology of aging and its array of interacting and accumulating disadvantages, the neurobiology of aging, and the neurobiological basis of behavior
• Neuropsychiatric Assessment of the Elderly—Describes how to ensure early, accurate diagnoses, using both the fundamental cognitive skills evaluation and the more in-depth neuropsychological evaluation; age-associated memory impairment (AAMI) and its biological bases; anatomic imaging of age-related changes in brain morphology; and the latest imaging techniques that allow visualization of brain function in vivo
• Neuropsychiatric Aspects of Psychiatric Disorders in the Elderly—Covers everything from affective and anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and psychoses that start late in life to sleep disorders, delirium, pain, contemporary personality psychology, mental retardation, and aggression
• Neuropsychiatric Aspects of Neurological Disease in the Elderly—Focuses on diseases such as nondegenerative dementing disorders, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, hyperkinetic movement disorders, stroke, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury, concluding with medical illnesses and therapies
• Principles of Neuropsychiatric Treatment of the Elderly—Discusses the effect of age in geriatric neuropsychopharmacology, psychopharmacology, ECT, psychosocial therapies, neuropsychiatry in nursing homes, genetic interventions, rehabilitation, ethical issues, and competency and related forensic issues

Exhaustively researched and annotated, the American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Geriatric Neuropsychiatry, Second Edition provides a definitive core reference for psychiatry and neurology residents, particularly those pursuing a specialty in geriatrics, and for graduate students in psychology, neuropsychology, and related fields.

Reviews
“This is an excellent book that supplies, in a user-friendly manner, information that wil be consulted repeatedly. Experienced geriatric psychiatrists will judge this to be a reliable source of data. Residents will find it an excellent teaching instrument.”—Psychiatric Times

“This is an outstanding and comprehensive second edition of this now classic textbook covering the field and current state of progress in geriatric neuropsychiatry. Edited and authored by internationally recognized researcher-clinicians, this textbook is an exceptionally valuable contribution to this field. . . . Clinicians and researchers as well as trainees will, without a doubt, benefit from reading and referring to this book.”—Doody’s Health Sciences Book Review Journal

“The second edition to Coffey and Cummings’ monumental work, American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Geriatric Neuropsychiatry, takes neuropsychiatry as a field even further down the final common pathway of aging. The editors have reorganized and expanded the work. They have added two prominent section editors, Mark Lovell and Godfrey Pearlson. The reader can use this work as a reference for major cognitive and epidemiologic questions of relevance to the aging population, and the clinician will find in it a catholic reference tool to assist with clinical diagnosis and treatment of behavioral disorders in the elderly. Both psychiatrists and neurologists will find sections that derive from their special perspectives upon older individuals with behavioral disease. Generalists will find in this volume the background that they need to better understand the last frontier of medical science: the diseases of the closing chapters of the life cycle. This second edition belongs in every library and in every office where serious geriatric medicine is practiced.”—R.B. Schiffer, M.D., Chair and Professor, The Vernon and Elizabeth Haggerton Chair in Neurology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas