Quantifying undiagnosed organic mental disorder in geriatric inpatients

Organic mental disorder often goes undetected in geriatric patients who have coexisting psychiatric symptoms. To determine the prevalence of organic mental disorders in geriatric patients admitted to a large metropolitan psychiatric inpatient service, charts for 95 patients over the age of 60 were reviewed, and diagnoses at admission and discharge were compared. Despite the facility's admission policy of excluding patients with only organic mental disorder, 32 patients required evaluation for organic mental disorder during hospitalization, and on reevaluation 15 patients received a primary diagnosis of organic mental disorder. The author discusses the mental health care and fiscal considerations of accurately assessing geriatric patients, especially in the context of the new federal regulations prohibiting most nursing home admissions for mentally ill patients.