ABSTRACT
Geriatric mental health issues have yet to receive their due recognition in India. Geriatric mental health is plagued by many challenges that prevent the development and progress of its services. The present article is a narrative review that looks at the various challenges faced by geriatric mental health in India. The article describes different specific and general unique challenges faced by geriatric mental health and discusses in detail the nature of each challenge and what must be done to overcome it. The challenges range from demography of Indian aging to sexual issues in the elderly, geriatric depression, dementia care, and the aging lesbian, gay, bisexual, cross-dressers and transgender community. Old age people face special physical and mental health challenges in routine life which are necessary to be recognized and rehabilitate. Mental health problems are often under identified or overlooked by themselves, health‑care professionals and even by family members of older people, and the stigma related to mental illness makes people reluctant to seek help. The prevalence of co-morbid condition of illnesses is a powerful demonstration of the link between physical and mental illnesses. Various issues related to policy and research that challenge geriatric mental health are also discussed in this article. The need to incorporate geriatric mental health into primary health care along with the need to train primary care workers and preventive work aimed at suicide prevention in the elderly is stressed. The article addresses these challenges with the aim of positing before the clinician the various challenges faced by geriatric mental health in India in the current era.