Multimorbidität bei älteren psychiatrischen Patienten

Multimorbidity in older psychiatric patients. Objective Multimorbidity represents a great challenge in the medical care of older people. Methods This exploratory study was part of the Gerontopsychiatry study Berlin (Gepsy-B), an analysis of data on all 941 older inpatients (> 65 years) admitted to a psychiatric hospital within a period of 3 years. Results: Nearly all patients (94,2%) suffered from a chronic somatic disorder. The mean number of chronic somatic disorders was 2.70+1.39 and showed age dependency (r=0.257, p <.001). The most prevalent disorders were cerebrovascular disorders (56.5%), hypertension (54.8%), chronic ischemic heart diseases or arrhythmias (52.2%) and diabetes mellitus type II (37.5%). Furthermore, many of the patients suffered from disabilities such as movement disorders (26.2%), severe hearing loss (16.5%), incontinence (15.1%) or severely reduced vision (7.4%). Organic brain disorders were more often associated with chronic somatic disorders or disabilities. Conclusions Older patients treated for psychiatric disorders very often show somatic multimorbidity that probably limit treatment outcome.