[Geriatrics--a missing discipline? On the need for interdisciplinary care services for psychiatric geriatric...

An ever increasing part of inhabitants, not only in industrial countries, will have an age of more than sixty years. This implies severe problems in the planning of services since care for the elderly comprises besides the medical aspects also psychological and social dimensions which are all three interconnected and make multidimensional diagnostics and therapy an absolute necessity. Therefore the problems can only be solved in an unified approach. The specialist in Geriatrics has not only to have the knowledge and skills of a specialist in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry. It is necessary to include Geriatric topics into the curricula for physicians where they are not yet found, even not in the newly released curriculum for the General Pracitioner. It is absolutely necessary to close this gap and even more urgent to furnish alternatives for the care of the elderly. In the framework of an integrated care concept (Bergener) the care for somatically ill demented patients is of a special importance.