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From The Critics
Reviewer: Kenneth Mays, MD(Rush University Medical Center)Description: This book can be described as a comprehensive review and update of the causes of mental illness among the geriatric population. It also includes a comprehensive review of both treatment and management strategies.
Purpose: The purpose, as specified in the preface, is "...to provide a current and comprehensive digest of the areas whose rapid development will most affect our work as old age psychiatrists." These is an excellent objective. This book and many more like it are desperately needed. In as far as providing the reader with "everything you need to know," I believe the author has done an admirable job and has meet his objectives. There are some topics about which I would want to know more, though.
Audience: The audience is limited to those in the fields of geriatric medicine, geriatric and general psychiatry, and geriatric healthcare specialists. For others, I believe this text would be ponderous and difficult to follow despite its concise nature. A factor that may prove a deterrent to the audience is the rather high cost.
Features: In a very broad sense, the topics in this book achieve just what the title promises — to provide readers with everything they need to know. Each topic simply informs without any one topic having any greater or lesser value. Because it is concise, it is a quick read for its target audience and, more importantly, it can be quickly memorized/internalized and thus applied in clinical practice. If someone wants more, the references are right there to guide the reader.
Assessment: This book is informative and gives the sense that the reader is getting the latest information on geriatric psychiatry. Very likely, I will be quoting from this text and using it when teaching medical students and residents. I would definitely recommend it to others.