Abstract
Mental disorders and mental symptoms often go untreated in both chronic care and primary care settings. However, they covary with functional disability. They are likely to impair social and occupational function in medical outpatients and to cause excess instrumental and cognitive disability in frail older persons. In both groups, they are frequent and often remediable. The costs of untreated mental disorders are often shifted to caregivers and to society in general. To ensure adequate mental health care requires a reorientation of medical care toward optimizing function and well-being as well as longevity. Such a reorientation will necessarily entail more attention to treatable mental disorders. Research is needed to (1) develop firm knowledge on which to base integrated medical and mental health treatment and (2) evaluate the potential economic benefits of combined care. Incentives must be changed if such a paradigm of care is to prosper.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
