Multimorbidity in elder psychiatric patients

Abstract

Multimorbidity represents a great challenge in the medical care of older people. This exploratory study was part of the Gerontopsychiatry study Berlin (Gepsy-B), an analysis of data on all 941 older inpatients (> 65 years) admitted to a psychiatric hospital within a period of 3 years. Nearly all patients (94,2 %) suffered from a chronic somatic disorder. The mean number of chronic somatic disorders was 2.70 + 1.39 and showed age dependency (r = 0.257, p < .001). The most prevalent disorders were cerebrovascular disorders (56.5 %), hypertension (54.8 %), chronic ischemic heart diseases or arrhythmias (52.2 %) and diabetes mellitus type II (37.5 %). Furthermore, many of the patients suffered from disabilities such as movement disorders (26.2 %), severe hearing loss (16.5 %), incontinence (15.1 %) or severely reduced vision (7.4 %). Organic brain disorders were more often associated with chronic somatic disorders or disabilities. Older patients treated for psychiatric disorders very often show somatic multimorbidity that probably limit treatment outcome.