Principles and Practice of Geriatric Psychiatry

At long last, here is a penetrating text in the field of geriatric psychiatry! When assembling a fellowship program in my early geropsych days, 1980 or so, only a couple of books were available, namely, Busse and Pfeiffer's Behavior and Adaptation in Late Life (1969) and Verwoerdt's Clinical Geropsychiatry (1976). These books contained roughly 200 to 250 pages each. More recently, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry sponsored the publication of Comprehensive Review of Geriatric Psychiatry (1991), edited by Sadavoy, Lazarus, and Jarvik (770 pages). Principles and Practice of Geriatric Psychiatry contains more than 1000 pages and includes 148 chapters by 206 contributors, who are, in general, recognized world authorities. Roughly half are from North America, with the balance from Western Europe and Asia. This book is welcome and will probably be considered the gold standard in geriatric psychiatry. A textbook like this represents a massive undertaking. The editors and