Clinical Textbook of Geriatric Psychiatry: Principles and Practice in Late-Life Mental Health Assessment, Neurocognitive Disorders, Pharmacotherapy, & Evidence-Based Care

Your 78-year-old patient is on eleven medications, presenting with new confusion, and the surgical team wants a psychiatric clearance by noon.Apply standard adult guidelines here and you will cause harm — missed delirium masked as agitation, lithium toxicity behind a normal creatinine, a benzodiazepine prescribed for anxiety that ends in a hip fracture.This book teaches you to think differently at the bedside of every older adult — from first assessment through the most complex pharmacological and neuromodulatory decisions you will face.Inside this book:• Recognize delirium before it becomes a crisis — distinguish it from dementia and depression using the CAM framework, EEG patterns, and a systematic precipitant workup • Prescribe with precision — apply age-specific dosing, Beers Criteria, and CYP450 interaction mapping to every psychotropic decision • Interpret biomarkers clinically — use plasma p-tau217, amyloid-PET, and AT(N) classification to guide diagnosis and anti-amyloid therapy eligibility • Stop missing late-life depression — recognize somatic and cognitive presentations that primary care systematically overlooks• Assess capacity, not just cognition — apply the four-ability framework to treatment refusals, guardianship decisions, and advance directive planning • Identify elder abuse — use clinical signs, mandatory reporting obligations, and structured documentation to protect vulnerable patients • Deploy neuromodulation appropriately — select between ECT, rTMS, esketamine, and DBS for treatment-resistant late-life depression with evidence-based confidenceThis book is for psychiatrists, geriatricians, internists, hospitalists, neurologists, NPs, PAs, pharmacists, and trainees who treat older adults and refuse to accept substandard care as inevitable.Every older adult who walks into your care deserves a clinician who has done this work — scroll up and get started. Read more