ABSTRACT
The rapid growth of geriatric psychiatry is due as much to the ‘graying of America’ as it is to the growth of science of geriatrics. The U.S. Bureau of the Census states that in 1945 America’s young outnumbered the old by almost three to one; by 2025, the old will outnumber the young (using the definition of the elderly as anyone past age sixty years and using the definition of the young as ages zero to nineteen years). Pervasive ageism is one of the ills of an American society that emphasizes youth and beauty. The Gray Panthers and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) have been successful in sensitizing many people to this problem and combating the perception of the elderly as feeble and demented. Actually, the mentally ill elderly comprise only 20 per cent of the people over sixty-five years of age, or around five million individuals. They are still a minority among their aged peers. Most people past the age of sixty years are cognitively intact and not depressed.
