A clinic for the impaired elderly and their families

The need for improving psychiatric services to the elderly and for recognizing the importance of the family in caring for the impaired elderly led to the establishment of the Geriatric and Family Services, an outpatient clinic. This clinic provides psychiatric, medical, social, nursing, and architectural evaluations and recommendations for impaired older persons and also provides support and practical advice to the family. Most of the clinic's patients suffer from a dementing illness; of this group most have dementia of the Alzheimer's type. The authors studied the appointment-keeping behavior of the patients and also surveyed the patients' families as an indication of the clinic's success. Out of 50 patients the broken-appointment rate, as well as the drop-out rate, was 2%; 90% of the families who responded to the questionnaire indicated they would recommend the clinic's services to others.