About Geriatric Psychiatry

Geriatric psychiatry is a specialty focused on preventing, evaluating, diagnosing, and treating emotional and mental disorders in older adults.

Geriatric psychiatrists are psychiatrists that specialize in the diagnosis, care, research about, and treatment of mental conditions affecting older adults. The specialized field of geriatric psychiatry is also commonly referred to as geropsychiatry, geripsych, geri-psychiatry, or psychogeriatrics. Geriatric psychiatrists provide care to their patients in a wide variety of settings, such as private practice, hospitals, assisted living facilities, in-patient care centers, and veteran care centers.

The need for geriatric mental health expertise in the United States has never been greater — and the gap between need and available care continues to widen.

At least 5.6 to 8 million older Americans — nearly 1 in 5 — live with one or more mental health or substance use conditions. Depressive disorders and dementia-related behavioral and psychiatric symptoms are among the most prevalent, and many of those affected are also managing multiple chronic conditions that complicate both treatment and caregiving. As the Institute of Medicine (IOM) made clear in its landmark report, The Mental Health and Substance Use Workforce for Older Adults: In Whose Hands?, without a significant and sustained effort to grow this workforce, millions of older adults will face serious barriers to diagnosis and treatment.

The demographic picture makes urgency unavoidable. The U.S. population age 65 and older is projected to grow from 40.3 million to 72.1 million by 2030. Yet today, there are only 7,029 certified geriatricians in the country — roughly half of what is currently needed — and that number is declining. The shortfall in geriatric psychiatry specifically is just as acute.

The IOM has called for a multi-pronged response, including redesigned Medicare and Medicaid payment structures to ensure coverage of counseling and care management, updated accreditation standards requiring all clinicians who treat older patients to recognize signs of mental health and substance use conditions, and a national effort to build a workforce commensurate with the scale of need.

AAGP is committed to that effort — training the next generation of geriatric psychiatrists and advancing the science and practice of mental health care for older adults.

Sources: Institute of Medicine, The Mental Health and Substance Use Workforce for Older Adults: In Whose Hands? (2012); American Geriatrics Society; Alliance for Aging Research.

Geriatric psychiatric training requires 4 years of medical school, 4 years of approved residency training in general psychiatry, and 1 year of specialty fellowship training in psychiatric work with older adults in an accredited residency in geriatric psychiatry.

When the psychiatry resident has completed their geriatric psychiatry fellowship and successfully passed the certification examination in general psychiatry given by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN), they are eligible to take the additional certification examination in the subspecialty of geriatric psychiatry.