[Apropos of Swiss research in psychogeriatrics. A critical analysis]

Psychogeriatrics is the general psychiatry of old age. It is closely related with the biological and human fundamental sciences and with the medical disciplines concerned with the care of old patients. Its issues are ubiquitous and also interest non psychiatrists, particularly geriatricians, internists, neurologists and psychologists. Therefore there is a risk for research to be spread out. As a medicine of synthesis, it must assert itself as a convergence point for the related branches. Its very vast field of research is confronted with particular methodological problems, like the chronological and biological age, the heterogeneity of the population, the polymorbidity. Psychogeriatrics is young and still requires an important involvement in the clinical tasks, in the medico-social coordination and in the teaching to medical and paramedical circles. Rare are centers having the critical mass for developing good research with complete peace of mind, Switzerland is an example of this. An analysis of the 1992 international literature shows a certain scattering of the psychogeriatric themes with a 50% predominance of papers devoted to dementias. In the future, psychogeriatrics must well limit its territory, particularly by developing services where care, teaching and research are harmonized.