Special Issues of Assessment and Treatment of Suicide Risk in the Elderly (IN: Suicide: Understanding and Responding: Harvard Medical School Perspectives, ed. by D Jacobs and H N Brown)

This chapter emphasizes the special clinical problems involved in assessing & treating elderly suicide risk. Includes an overview of elderly suicide rates in the U.S.; demographics; evaluation of individual suicide risk; special problems in risk assessment such as atypical presentation of depression in the elderly, gerontophobic attitudes in caregivers, & age related differences in perspective on death. Suggestions for treatment & prevention are also given. 48 refs. (LH)