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Geriatric Psychiatry and Its Development in History

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The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences

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Abstract

Although medical concern with mental disorder in old age can be found in every society since antiquity, only in the second half of the twentieth century did geriatric psychiatry take shape as a distinct professional specialty within medicine, by the 1980s replete with its own professional organizations and journals. This development occurred across the countries of North America and Europe in the decades following World War II, as modern Western welfare states confronted the unprecedented challenges of rapidly aging societies – particularly the specter of a dramatic increase in the prevalence of dementia. Thus, the relatively recent development of geriatric psychiatry as a specialty is connected to the much longer history of ideas in medicine and society about mental health and aging. Since antiquity, physicians have noted that the aged are particularly susceptible to mental infirmity and debated whether this should be thought of as disease or as part of the aging process itself. This debate has continued in various forms down to the present. Disentangling the relationship between aging and disease to develop an age-appropriate approach to therapeutics remains the core problem of all geriatric medicine, including geriatric psychiatry.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Jesse F. Ballenger

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  1. Jesse F. Ballenger
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Correspondence to Jesse F. Ballenger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    David McCallum

Section Editor information

  1. Department of History, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

    Eric J. Engstrom

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© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Ballenger, J.F. (2022). Geriatric Psychiatry and Its Development in History. In: McCallum, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_89-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4106-3_89-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-4106-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-4106-3

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