[Phenomenology and psychodynamics of suicidal acts by the elderly]

Worldwide demographic changes will be clearly accompanied by a growing percentage in the world population of human beings in advanced age. People above 64 years will account for 6.6 per cent in the year 2000 and for 9.3 per cent in 2025. Reference is made, in this context, to an expected rise in the incidence of psychic disorders. Old-age suicidality was studied against that background. Special interviews were made with all patients (n = 141) admitted for abortive suicide to the Geropsychiatric Department of Berlin, between 1973 and 1982, with the view to clearing up the phenomenology and psychodynamics of their action. Eighteen women and ten men attempted suicide in a state of paranoid-hallucinative psychosis. Generally known endogenic psychoses were not present. The remaining suicidal attempts were made in the wake of depression primarily for exogenic causes, such as lack of contact and conflict situations, or physical diseases accompanied by severe complaints. Socalled "tough" and "soft" methods had been almost equally used by either sex. The analysis provided relevant information conductive to an expansion of complex attention to aged citizens. Effective action should be taken, in the first place, to cope with their loneliness syndromes.