ABSTRACT
Background: Geriatric mental health is a neglected domain of mental health and many cases remainundetected in the community. Community programs have often helped to detect many cases of the elderlywith psychiatric problems and help them access care. The current paper aims to present an analysis ofpatients seen in a geriatric health camp from a psychiatric perspective.Methods: 103 elderly attended the geriatric camp and were assessed clinically for psychiatric problems. Theywere also administered the Adenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination Revised (ACE-R) Hindi version, Barthel’sIndex for Activities of Daily Living and 3.Hwalek-Sengstock Elder Abuse Screening Test (H-S/EAST). Theresults were analyzed statistically and presented.Results: The mean age of the subjects in the study was 66.05 ± 7.9 years. 83 subjects (79%) out of the 105were female. The mean BIADL score of the sample was 19.52 ± 1.9 and on the basis of scores on the ACER they were classified as having cognitive impairment (n=67) and not having cognitive impairment (n=27).The cognitively impaired group differed from the non-cognitive impairment on all subscales of the ACE-R.55 (52.4%) reported the presence of elder abuse but had taken no action against it. The BIADL scores showeda significant correlation on all aspects of ACE-R scores.Conclusions: Geriatric health camps can serve as a useful arena for the detection of geriatric mental healthproblems. Further studies in larger populations are needed to corroborate the findings seen in the geriatrichealth camp reported in this study