[Medical data from a gerontological field-study and its value with regard to the conception of a psychogeriatric...

1114 people were investigated by a sociological interview. A representative subgroup got a medical check-up mostly by psychiatrists, a few of them by the family doctors. It revealed a refusal-group of 28% out of 625 persons. Our medical data did not confirm the rate of morbidity from 10 to 20% of the elderly. Whereas the sociological date of the refusal-group maybe identify the expected crisis-population so that we did not gain enough information for planning a psychogeriatric service by this field-study.