[Psychomotor activity and diagnosis in geriatric psychiatry]

The question of the relationship between motor behaviour and psychopathology has been of concern to clinicians for many years. This question appears in the history of diseases as different from each other as general paralysis, hysteria, schizophrenia and mental retardation. The questions raised were the source of the development of a symptomatology of motor behaviours--the domain of which is not muscular potential or praxic abilities (action capacities) as much as their actual use in observed action (action "realization"). This symptomatology implies an interpersonal dimension, which translates itself into bodily postures, gestures, changes of position, movements from one place to another and the manner in which the patient accomplishes actions. An analysis of their organization and their diachronic unfolding enables one to grasp and understand more effectively certain psychic states, and to act on them. This clinical approach leads to greater specificity in the area of geriatric psychiatry. Here, diagnosis is not an entity which encompasses the totality of the symptoms which identify a disease, but as knowledge necessary to engage in a therapeutic program. Such an approach takes into account the disease, the patient and his environment, and thereby validates an original approach to the study of motor behaviours in geriatric psychiatry.