The long-term care insurance system and geriatric psychiatry

Abstract

The long-term care insurance system targets people who require support because of mental or physical disturbances due to aging. This overlaps in many areas with the field of geriatric psychiatry, which is expected to play a significant role in diagnosis and hospitalization in the long-term care insurance system. Representative of the former is the forgetfulness clinic, and representative of the latter is the “senile dementia disorder center”. When a person at home or in a nursing facility becomes seriously demented or suffers serious physical illness, he is generally hospitalized. However, there is an ongoing project which allows group homes to care for the seriously demented or physically damaged elderly. Under the long-term care insurance system, there are many problems that should be dealt with by geriatric psychiatry. One essential issue is the lack of basic research on judgment abilities and mental competency, even though users are expected to select services and make their own decisions under this system. Once there is a social support system for the care-requiring elderly, it is necessary to assess the decision-making ability of individual elderly. If this ability is sufficiently maintained it should be respected to the utmost. If it is impaired, we must have a viewpoint on how to provide care through a social system. A consensus has yet to be reached on informed consent for the demented elderly, and this issue should be considered with a focus on geriatric psychiatry. © 2004, The Japan Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved.