Institute on Aging
National Center on Elder Abuse
2000

Reviewed by Loree Cook-Daniels

“Mental health Issues in Elder Abuse” is one of a series of well-regarded technical assistance manuals produced by the Institute on Aging and the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA).

The manual opens with an introduction to mental disorders and how they affect the elderly and covers clinical depression, bereavement, suicide, dementia, pseudodementia, age-related cognitive decline, anxiety disorders, adjustment disorder, personality disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, substance abuse and drug interactions, and dual diagnoses.

The section on mental health factors associated with elder abuse focuses on what’s been missing from some recent important reports on mental health: how elders who have mental illnesses are abused, how abuse may cause mental health problems, and the connection between mental illness and elder abusers. This part of the manual also discusses how various systems respond (or don’t respond) to the needs of such elders and perpetrators.

Part 3 of the manual looks at how the network of services to abusers and victims with mental illnesses can be strengthened. This part concludes with recommendations for what communities can do to improve mental health service delivery.

As with all the technical assistance manuals in this collection, the document closes with references and short reviews of promising practices, professional training, and national projects or organizations sponsoring innovative, relevant projects.

The manual is not available online. Hard copies are available for $15 each (plus 8.5% tax for California residents) from:
Institute on Aging’s San Francisco Consortium for Elder Abuse Prevention
3330 Geary Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 447-1989, ext. 513 (voice)
(415) 447-1250 (fax)
mtwomey@ioaging.org (e-mail)