April 30, 2007 - Vol 1, Issue 13
Geriatric Mental Health Demonstrations Program Grants Announced
As we shared with you last week, The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) and the New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA) announced nine conditional grant awards for geriatric mental health services. There were 68 applications, the most in OMH history.
More information about the grantees is now online. Please click here for more information.
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Geriatric Mental Health 2006 Annual Report
The NY State Interagency Geriatric Mental Health Council's Annual Report to the Governor and Legislature is now online.
Please click here to read the report.
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GMHA Conference - Register Online!
1st Annual Conference of the Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of New York
Geriatric Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities Across the Horizon
Thursday, May 31, 2007
9:00am - 4:00pm
New York Hotel Pennsylvania
New York City, New York
Join your colleagues at the first annual conference of the Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of New York. The keynote is Dr. Steve Bartels, a Professor at Dartmouth Medical School and an eminent researcher in geriatric mental health. He will be presenting on implementing evidence based practices to address the mental health needs of older adults. There will be an exciting panel on models for integrating health and mental health services, a presentation by NYS Office for the Aging Director, Michael Burgess, a terrific series of workshops from some of our members on innovative models, clinical skills and more.
Please click here for the brochure and registration information.
Note: This program has been approved by NASW- New York State for 4.5 contact hours under approval number A-962
Registrar Phone: (518) 281-2754
Registrar Fax: (518)-689-4824
You can now REGISTER ONLINE
Please spread the word! Share the brochure with your colleagues, post the info to your websites, and announce it in their newsletters.
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GMHA Conference: Vendor and Sponsorship Opportunities
We invite you to join us in support of our 1st Annual Geriatric Mental Health Conference by displaying materials as a vendor or sponsoring the event.
Vendors will be able to display their material throughout the conference. Sponsors will be listed as such in the conference material as well as receive recognition throughout the event.
Click here to view the vendor and sponsor prospectus for more information, including fees.
We hope that you will consider either being a vendor or a sponsor of the event.
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Advocacy Alert: Support The Federal Elder Justice Act
Please contact your New York State representative to ask that he/she cosponsor H.R. 1783, the bipartisan Elder Justice Act.
You should direct your representative to the Dear Colleague letter that was written by Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the author of the bill, and Rep. Peter King (R-NY), its co-author.
In your communication with your representative, you should stress that elder abuse, neglect and exploitation are real and growing problems in our nation. The degree to which you can provide local information will be of great help as well. The Elder Justice Act is the most comprehensive legislation ever proposed in this policy area and is intended to provide a coordinated effort to combat elder abuse, neglect and exploitation.
To find your Representative go to http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=ha5fg4bab.0.nyf9f4bab.65m45zbab.1&ts=S0239&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.house.gov and type in your zip code.
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Michael Friedman Has Geriatric Mental Health Article in MI Watch
Michael has a piece entitled "Meeting the Mental Health Issues of the Elder Boom" in the latest edition of MI Watch. Here is the link
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Upcoming Events
May 8, 2007 - Senior Citizens’ Day 2007 Public event celebrating the many individuals from across the state who have volunteered in their communities to improve the lives of others. The event will be held from 1:00 – 3:00 in the Empire State Plaza, Meeting Room 6, Albany, NY.
May 16, 2007 - 2007 Hearthstone Reisberg Award and Lecture sponsored by the Hearthstone Alzheimer Family Foundation. Dr. Michelle Bourgeois is the recipient of the 2007 Reisberg Award for Excellence in Non-Pharmacologic Treatment and Research in Alzheimer's Disease. Dr. Bourgeois will receive her award and give a lecture entitled "From Memory Books to Reminder Cards: Maintaining Function in Dementia with Written Cues". The event is from 9:00 am - 11:00am at . Register for this event by contacting Cindy Hecht at 917-331-8647 or hecht@thehearth.org.
May 16, 2007 - Tools for Navigating the Labyrinth of Memory Disorders: Making Order Out of Chaos sponsored by the Queens Mental Health Council Geriatrics Committee and the Alzhiemer's Association, NYC Chapter. The conference will be from 8:30am-1:30pm at the Parker Jewish Institute Health Care and Rehabilitation Campus of Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Please view the brochure for more information on the program and registration.
May 21, 2007 - Building Community: A Conference Addressing Geriatric Mental Health Awareness & Advocacy sponsored by JPAC and JASA from 9am-12noon at UJA Federation of New York, 130 East 59th Street, 7th Floor, NYC. Advanced registration is required.
Please see flyer for more information.
June 14, 2007 - JASA Volunteer Ventures Expo A free half-day conference and volunteer opportunities fair for adults 50+. The event is from 9:30-2:00pm at the UJA Federation of New York, 130 East 59th Street, 7th Floor, NYC. Advanced registration is required.
See flyer for more details.
June 19th and 20th - Save the Date: The 11th Annual “Aging Concerns Unite Us” Conference at the Albany Crowne Plaza, State and Lodge Street, Albany, NY. For more information, please email gabe@nysaaaa.org or visit the NYSAAAA website.
June 22, 2007 - 7th Annual Orange County Mental Health & Wellness Conference OMH Commissioner Michael F. Hogan and Geriatric Mental Health Alliance Chairman Michael Friedman to Keynote. The conference will take place from 8:30am to 4:00pm at Anthony's Pier 9 in New Windsor. For more information, please visit here.
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LTCCC Holds CMP Partnership Summit
In early 2007 LTCCC convened a CMP Partnership Summit, to discuss the use of nursing home civil monetary penalties (CMPs) and state fines as part of a LTCCC project funded by the New York Community Trust. The summit brought together representatives of a number of consumer advocacy organizations as well as the state and local ombudsmen to identify consumer priorities for the use of CMPs and potential projects and activities that the funds could be used for, which would benefit nursing home residents.
As reported in the summer 2006 edition of The Monitor, LTCCC's national study on civil money penalties indicated that there are significant monies available but that the monies are not always used appropriately (see www.nursinghome411.org for report and consumer materials). Because CMP monies must be used for specific, resident-centered purposes (such as protecting residents during a nursing home closure or for projects and activities that improve resident care and quality of life) we focused on identifying projects that benefit residents and ways in which stakeholders can be involved in their states in both developing proposals for the use of the monies and bringing accountability to the entire process.
In 2004, New York State passed a law, long advocated by LTCCC, that permitted it to collect federal CMPs. LTCCC created the CMP Stakeholder Summit in order to implement in New York the recommendations made in our national report as well as to give additional guidance to the state Department of Health as it awards grants for projects funded by CMPs and state fines. This will begin during this year.
Groups which took part in the CMP Stakeholder Summit included: Alzheimer's Association NYC chapter, Brooklyn-Wide Interagency Council of the Aging, Center for the Independence of Disabled of NY, Coalition for Institutionalized Aged and Disabled, Friends and Relatives of Institutionalized Aged, The Hudson Valley Ombudsman Program, InnerAction Plus, New York State Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of New York, Manhattan Borough Wide Interagency Council of the Aging, the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program in Westchester County, NY State Ombudsman Association, Ombudservice Family Service League, Suffolk County, Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, and United Hospital Fund of NY.
Summit Recommendations for New York State
In addition to supporting implementation of the recommendations made in LTCCC's national report such as: absolutely require that funds be used for purposes directly related to nursing home residents; expend funds for CMPs/fines primarily for special projects and programs that stimulate resident quality of care and quality of life that can ultimately be replicated; authorize funds for innovative projects that go beyond regulatory requirements and ordinary budget items to improve residents' quality of care and quality of life, encourage person directed care, promote consumer advocacy and involvement and stimulate and support the spread of "culture change," the Summit generated a number of additional suggestions:
- Publicize the availability of funds.
- Encourage non-provider projects. It is important to make sure that small grassroots organizations and local ombudsmen programs are able to participate.
- Make sure that funded projects are focused on making meaningful change.
- Require that a project's goals have broad stakeholder support.
- Priority should be given to projects in the counties where the CMPs were levied.
- Require applicants to identify the underlying problems their projects will address, giving the scope of their projects and how many people will benefit.
An action plan was developed to encourage the implementation of these regulations and a small group of participants from the Summit agreed to participate in an ongoing CMP workgroup that will continue to work to implement these recommendations by meeting with policy makers and monitoring future funded projects. LTCCC will also continue to publicize CMP developments and help non- providers apply for funding by making sure they know of both the availability of the funds and how to apply once a request for proposals is released.
What You Can Do
Join our CMP Stakeholder Group at http://groups.google.com/group/ny- cmp-stakeholders. Members of the Stakeholder Group will be able to take part in consumer oriented discussions of CMPS and hear the latest news from us on CMPs.
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Report on Coast of Long-Term Care
Genworth Financial recently released its 2007 cost of care survey. The survey includes data points from more than 10,000 nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and home care providers across the country.
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In the News
In this section:
- Annals of Medicine: THE WAY WE AGE NOW - Medicine has increased the ranks of the elderly. Can it make old age any easier? - By Atul Gawande (The New Yorker)
- Study Urges New System for Elderly Care - By Randolph E. Schmid (Newsday, Inc.) Baby
- Boomers Appear to be Less Healthy Than Parents - By Rob Stein (Washington Post) Suicide
- Report To Aid Prevention Initiatives - Anonymous (Medical News Today)
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Annals of Medicine
THE WAY WE AGE NOW
Medicine has increased the ranks of the elderly. Can it make old age any easier?
By Atul Gawande
From the New Yorker
April 30, 2007
The hardest substance in the human body is the white enamel of the teeth. With age, it wears away nonetheless, allowing the softer, darker layers underneath to show through. Meanwhile, the blood supply to the pulp and the roots of the teeth atrophies, and the flow of saliva diminishes; the gums tend to become inflamed and pull away from the teeth, exposing the base, making them unstable and elongating their appearance, especially the lower ones. Experts say they can gauge a person's age to within five years from the examination of a single tooth-if the person has any teeth left to examine.
Scrupulous dental care can help avert tooth loss, but growing old gets in the way. Arthritis, tremors, and small strokes, for example, make it difficult to brush and floss, and, because nerves become less sensitive with age, people may not realize that they have cavity and gum problems until it's too late. In the course of a normal lifetime, the muscles of the jaw lose about forty per cent of their mass and the bones of the mandible lose about twenty per cent, becoming porous and weak. The ability to chew declines, and people shift to softer foods, which are generally higher in fermentable carbohydrates and more likely to cause cavities. By the age of sixty, Americans have lost, on average, a third of their teeth. After eighty-five, almost forty per cent have no teeth at all.
Even as our bones and teeth soften, the rest of our body hardens. Blood vessels, joints, the muscle and valves of the heart, and even the lungs pick up substantial deposits of calcium and turn stiff. Under a microscope, the vessels and soft tissues display the same form of calcium that you find in bone. When you reach inside an elderly patient during surgery, the aorta and other major vessels often feel crunchy under your fingers. A recent study has found that loss of bone density may be an even better predictor of death from atherosclerotic disease than cholesterol levels. As we age, it's as if the calcium flows out of our skeletons and into our tissues.
To maintain the same volume of blood flow through narrowed and stiffened blood vessels, the heart has to generate increased pressure. As a result, more than half of us develop hypertension by the age of sixty-five. The heart becomes thicker-walled from having to pump against the pressure, and less able to respond to the demands of exertion. The peak output of the heart decreases steadily from the age of thirty. People become gradually less able to run as far or as fast as they used to, or to climb a flight of stairs without becoming short of breath.
Why we age is the subject of vigorous debate. The classical view is that aging happens because of random wear and tear. A newer view holds that aging is more orderly and genetically driven. Proponents of this view point out that animals of similar species and exposure to wear and tear have markedly different life spans. The Canada goose has a longevity of 23.5 years; the emperor goose only 6.3 years. Perhaps animals are like plants, with lives that are, to a large extent, internally governed. Certain species of bamboo, for instance, form a dense stand that grows and flourishes for a hundred years, flowers all at once, and then dies.
The idea that living things shut down and not just wear down has received substantial support in the past decade. Researchers working with the now famous worm C. elegans (two of the last five Nobel Prizes in medicine went to scientists doing work on the little nematode) were able to produce worms that live more than twice as long and age more slowly by altering a single gene. Scientists have since come up with single-gene alterations that increase the life spans of Drosophila fruit flies, mice, and yeast.
These findings notwithstanding, scientists do not believe that our life spans are actually programmed into us. After all, for most of our hundred-thousand- year existence-all but the past couple of hundred years-the average life span of human beings has been thirty years or less. (Research suggests that subjects of the Roman Empire had an average life expectancy of twenty-eight years.) Today, the average life span in developed countries is almost eighty years. If human life spans depend on our genetics, then medicine has got the upper hand. We are, in a way, freaks living well beyond our appointed time. So when we study aging what we are trying to understand is not so much a natural process as an unnatural one. Inheritance has surprisingly little influence on longevity. James Vaupel, of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, in Rostock, Germany, notes that only six per cent of how long you'll live, compared with the average, is explained by your parents' longevity; by contrast, up to ninety per cent of how tall you are, compared with the average, is explained by your parents' height. Even genetically identical twins vary widely in life span: the typical gap is more than fifteen years.
If our genes explain less than we imagined, the wear- and-tear model may explain more than we knew. Leonid Gavrilov, a researcher at the University of Chicago, argues that human beings fail the way all complex systems fail: randomly and gradually. As engineers have long recognized, many simple devices do not age. They function reliably until a critical component fails, and the whole thing dies instantly. A windup toy works smoothly until a gear rusts or a spring breaks, and then it doesn't work at all. But complex systems-power plants, say-have to survive and function despite having thousands of critical components. Engineers therefore design these machines with multiple layers of redundancy: with backup systems, and backup systems for the backup systems. The backups may not be as efficient as the first-line components, but they allow the machine to keep going even as damage accumulates. Gavrilov argues that, within the parameters established by our genes, that's exactly how human beings appear to work. We have an extra kidney, an extra lung, an extra gonad, extra teeth. The DNA in our cells is frequently damaged under routine conditions, but our cells have a number of DNA repair systems. If a key gene is permanently damaged, there are usually extra copies of the gene nearby. And, if the entire cell dies, other cells can fill in.
Nonetheless, as the defects in a complex system increase, the time comes when just one more defect is enough to impair the whole, resulting in the condition known as frailty. It happens to power plants, cars, and large organizations. And it happens to us: eventually, one too many joints are damaged, one too many arteries calcify. There are no more backups. We wear down until we can't wear down anymore.
To read the rest of the article click here.
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Study Urges New System for Elderly Care
By Randolph E. Schmid
AP Science Writer
April 24, 2007, 7:16 PM EDT
WASHINGTON -- The aging baby boom generation is likely to increase the nation's disabled population, and a study says the United States needs a better system to provide care for them. More than 40 million Americans currently have some sort of disability, the Institute of Medicine reported Tuesday.
And a decline in physical activity and increase in obesity and diabetes in younger generations raises concerns that, as the nation ages, an increasing share of the population will experience disability, the Institute said.
"The number of Americans who have disabilities will grow significantly in the next 30 years as the baby boom generation enters late life," said Alan M. Jette, director of the Health and Disability Research Institute at the Boston University School of Public Health.
"If one considers people who now are disabled, those likely to develop a future disability and people who are or will be affected by the disabilities of family members or others close to them, it becomes clear that disability will eventually affect the lives of most Americans," said Jette, chairman of the committee that prepared the report.
He added: "The sobering reality, however, is that over the past two decades, far too little progress has been made in adopting major public policy and practice advances to reduce disability in America."
The Institute of Medicine is a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, which is an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.
In a previous report in 1997, IOM said the federal research into disability was inadequate and called for more.
Nonetheless, the new report says, federal spending on this research remains "minuscule in relation to current and future needs."
The study concluded that action "taken sooner rather than later -- is essential for the nation to avoid a future of harm and inequity and, instead, to improve the lives of people with disabilities."
Among the recommendations, the report called on the Congress and federal agencies to:
- Increase funding for research into clinical health services, social, behavioral and other disability problems.
- Strengthen provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act to ensure that health care facilities are accessible to the disabled.
- Eliminate the two-year waiting period for Medicare eligibility for those who are receiving Social Security Disability Insurance.
- Modify the "in-home-use" requirement for Medicare coverage of durable medical equipment. That requirement now prevents payment for equipment that can be used both in and outside the home, the report said.
- Increase educational programs for health professionals caring for the disabled.
- Develop a system for monitoring the number and types of disabled people through the National Center for Health Statistics, Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.
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Baby Boomers Appear to Be Less Healthy Than Parents
By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 20, 2007
As the first wave of baby boomers edges toward retirement, a growing body of evidence suggests that they may be the first generation to enter their golden years in worse health than their parents. While not definitive, the data sketch a startlingly different picture than the popular image of health- obsessed workout fanatics who know their antioxidants from their trans fats and look 10 years younger than their age.
Boomers are healthier in some important ways -- they are much less likely to smoke, for example -- but large surveys are consistently finding that they tend to describe themselves as less hale and hearty than their forebears did at the same age. They are more likely to report difficulty climbing stairs, getting up from a chair and doing other routine activities, as well as more chronic problems such as high cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes.
"We're seeing some very powerful evidence all pointing to parallel findings," said Mark D. Hayward, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin. "The trend seems to be that people are not as healthy as they approach retirement as they were in older generations. It's very disturbing."
While cautioning that the data are just starting to emerge, researchers say the findings track with several unhealthy trends, notably the obesity epidemic. Two-thirds of Americans are overweight, and those extra pounds make joints wear out more quickly, boost cholesterol and blood pressure, and raise the risk of a host of debilitating health problems. And despite all those gym memberships, baby boomers tend to be less physically active than their parents and grandparents, their daily routines often dominated by desk jobs and the drive to and from work.
"A lot of what we visualize about the baby boomers are the people who went to college -- the highly educated group that gets all the attention. They're the cultural icon," said David R. Weir, an economist at the University of Michigan, noting that studies have shown that better-educated people tend to have more healthful lifestyles and better access to health care. "But not everyone went to college, and not everyone is engaging in these healthful activities."
Even those who try to take care of themselves are not always entirely successful. Take Larry Kirkland, a 57- year-old sculptor who lives in Northwest Washington. Kirkland walks and swims regularly to stay in shape, watches what he eats, and fights to keep his weight down. Ask him about his health, and Kirkland will tell you that it's good. Well, pretty good.
There's his blood pressure, which has been high for years. He takes medication to keep it under control. His cholesterol jumped, too, requiring another pill to keep that in check. Then his blood sugar started going up, prompting his doctor to remind him that he really should drop at least 10 pounds if he wants to avoid diabetes.
"There are the creeping aches and pains. I dislocated my shoulder once, and that continues to bug me. I have knees that decide to be wobbly on occasion. I know that as you get older things tend to begin to fall apart," Kirkland said, adding that he gets fever blisters and that his psoriasis flares up when he is stressed.
"I can get under quite a bit of pressure from my work," Kirkland said.
In fact, boomers tend to report more stress than earlier generations -- from their jobs, their commutes, taking care of their parents and their kids -- all of which can take a physical toll, which is compounded by having less support from extended families and communities, experts say.
"People are working two jobs. They are not sleeping as much. They're experiencing more job insecurity. They have less time to take care of themselves. They are more socially isolated," said Lisa Berkman of the Harvard School of Public Health. "This all could add up to a huge crisis and really calls for us to examine the things that perhaps we're not doing so well."
Some researchers are skeptical, saying that U.S. life expectancy has increased consistently for decades, accompanied by a steady drop in disability rates. Rising rates of chronic disease may simply mean that such illnesses are being diagnosed earlier, which could translate into longer lives and less disability because boomers are getting their heart disease and diabetes under control sooner.
"This doesn't cause me to despair," said Kenneth Manton, a demographer at Duke University. "You have to take this data in the context of other data, such as life expectancy." Others agree that the data are unclear because the baby boomers are not yet old enough to report major health problems in significant numbers, but they added that the findings so far are ominous.
"We haven't seen any enormous effects yet," said David M. Cutler, an economist at Harvard. "But we may be starting to see some inklings of what's coming."
One of the most alarming red flags was thrown up by the federally funded Health and Retirement Study, which is tracking more than 20,000 U.S. adults as they move through middle age toward retirement.
When researchers examined the first wave of baby boomers to enter the study -- 5,030 adults born between 1948 and 1953 -- they were shocked to discover that they appeared to report poorer health than groups born between 1936 and 1941, and between 1942 and 1947.
The baby boomers were much less likely than their predecessors to describe their health as "excellent" or "very good," and were more likely to report having difficulty with routine activities, such as walking several blocks or lifting 10 pounds. They were also more likely to report pain, drinking and psychiatric problems, and chronic problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.
"It's not what I expected," said Beth J. Soldo of the Population Aging Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania, who led the analysis.
It is unclear whether boomers are really sicker or are simply more health-conscious by dint of being better educated and having better access to information. They may also have higher expectations, making them more likely to notice and complain about aches and pains that earlier generations would have accepted as just part of getting older.
"As they age, they may be less tolerant of the changes they see -- minor pains, less stamina, muscle loss and strength," Soldo said. "I don't just think they are crybabies or whiners. I think there is a changing definition of what good health means."
But self-reports of health tend to be powerful predictors of risk of death at any given age, Soldo and others say.
"We have been making progress with the elderly, who are doing better," said Dana Goldman, who studies health issues at the Rand Corp. "But while we've been patting our backs about the older people, the younger generation has been ignored. Disability is rising fastest among the youngest age groups."
The findings are consistent with a number of studies, including one last year that found American adults have poorer health than their British counterparts, and a preliminary analysis of data collected between 1972 and 2003 for the National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative survey of more than 100,000 Americans.
"Overall it looks like there's been some recent declines in overall health among younger adults compared to the cohorts of previous decades," said Robert Hummer, a sociologist at the University of Texas, who conducted that analysis. "It's worrisome."
One of Hummer's colleagues produced similar findings in a survey of 2,500 adults between 1995 and 2001.
"It's pretty scary," said John Mirowsky, who conducted the survey. "Until now people have been living longer and living longer without the need for assistance -- they can dress themselves and take care of themselves. But it looks like we may be on the verge of a change where we'll have an increasing proportion of the elderly needing assistance, and possibly a decline in life expectancy."
If the findings are confirmed by further analysis, the trend could force policymakers to rethink a host of expectations and projections about the nation's overall medical bill and the future of Social Security and other retirement programs.
"If people are entering early old age in worse health, it doesn't bode well for society," said Richard M. Suzman of the National Institute on Aging. "It's quite worrying."
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Suicide Report To Aid Prevention Initiatives
From Medical News Today
April 1, 2007
Older people are more successful than any other age group at committing suicide, a new report has revealed.
Staffordshire University academic Derek Beeston from the Centre for Ageing and Mental Health was commissioned to look at the issue by Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP) West Midlands.
The findings, derived from a systematic review of research on suicide in older people, will form the backbone of a specialist conference to be hosted at the University's Beaconside campus today (March 27) and which is set to be attended by world experts in the field of depression and suicide.
The review, which highlights the fact that people over 65 are more successful than any other age group at taking their own lives, has already been endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners, which has responded by issuing a new guidance to assist family doctors in preventing suicide in older people.
The report Older People and Suicide also finds that discrimination and ageism is evident in primary care and that symptoms of depression are not being identified or treated as they would in younger people. Key findings include:
- The strongest predictor of eventual suicide for an older person is past attempts
- The suicide of an older person can frequently come 'out of the blue'.
- Attempted suicide by an older person is more likely to result in a future death by suicide than is the case with younger people.
- Many front line staff may misread the signs as being part of 'what it is to be old' or everyday 'wear and tear of life'.
- Suicide in older people is a complex problem which requires interventions in the form of combating stigma, community building and positive social policy initiatives alongside physical health promotion initiatives such as regular health screening.
- Early dementia and retirement are risk factors for suicide in older people.
- Primary care workers should be particularly vigilant for depression in older patients who may also have physical conditions that affect quality of life.
- The identification treatment and management of depression in older people is significant factor in the prevention of suicide
- Some suicides may be prevented by restriction to access of means of suicide such as discouraging the hoarding of prescription and over the counter drugs.
The work, which was completed over nine months, has also been presented to Dr Hugh Griffiths, Deputy Director for Mental Health at the Department of Health and has been brought to the attention of Professor Louis Appleby, the Government's Mental Health Tsar. Professor Appleby has led the National Suicide Prevention Strategy and has filmed an introduction for the conference.
"This work may ultimately have an impact on the National Suicide Prevention strategy," said Derek. "The challenges arising from the review are concerned with tackling discrimination and treating depression as the findings suggest that around two thirds of suicides in olderpeople could probably be avoided.
"Among the 16 to 25 year old agegroup, for every 200 attempts there is one suicide. In males aged over 80 for every two attempt there is one suicide.
