Lesson 1Documentation templates and medico-legal considerations for outpatient geriatric psychiatryLooks into useful ways to keep records for outpatient psychiatric care for older people, stressing clear writing, noting risks, capacity records, informed agreement, and legal protections to lower risks and support good, defendable care.
Structuring the geriatric psychiatry noteDocumenting risk, capacity, and consentHandling late-life safeguarding concernsUse of templates and checklistsCommon medico-legal pitfallsCommunication with primary care and familyLesson 2Standardized screening tools: selection, administration, and scoringCovers picking the right screening tools, proper use, scoring, and understanding results, paying attention to culture, language, and sense factors, and how to fit results into diagnosis thinking and ongoing clinic watching.
Selecting tools by clinical questionStandardized administration proceduresScoring rules and cutoffsAccounting for education and cultureTracking change over timeCommunicating results to patientsLesson 3Assessing activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL (IADL)Explains practical ways to check basic and more complex daily activities, understand drops in function, and connect findings to diagnosis, risks, and care planning, including driving, money matters, and medicine handling.
Core ADL domains and rating scalesKey IADL tasks in late lifeLinking function to cognition and moodAssessing driving and community safetyFinancial and medication managementUsing functional data in care plansLesson 4Interpreting Mini-Cog, Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) resultsGives step-by-step help on using and understanding Mini-Cog, GDS-15, and MoCA, knowing limits, wrong positives and negatives, and how to mix scores with clinic judgment and extra information.
Administering the Mini-Cog correctlyUsing and scoring the GDS-15MoCA domains and scoring nuancesAdjusting for education and languagePatterns suggesting delirium or dementiaExplaining results to patients and familiesLesson 5Identifying atypical presentations: psychomotor slowing, apathy, and masked affectFocuses on spotting unusual or quiet signs of mental illness in older folks, like slow movements, lack of interest, and hidden feelings, and telling them apart from normal aging, sadness, memory loss, and medicine side effects.
Clinical features of psychomotor slowingDistinguishing apathy from depressionMasked affect and cultural factorsMedication and neurological mimicsUse of collateral to clarify changesImplications for diagnosis and treatmentLesson 6Comprehensive history taking: psychiatric, medical, social, functional, and medication reviewDetails a planned, quick way to take history from older people, mixing mental health, health, social, function, and medicine info, while handling time, thinking problems, and many sources in busy clinic places.
Structuring the initial interviewEliciting psychiatric symptom historyMedical and neurological comorbiditiesSocial, family, and support contextFunctional status and role changesMedication and substance reviewLesson 7Assessment of sleep, appetite, weight change, and sensory deficitsReviews careful checking of sleep, eating, weight shifts, and sense losses, pointing out their use in diagnosis, links to mood and thinking, and practical ways for history, measuring, and starting management plans.
Characterizing insomnia and hypersomniaAppetite and weight change patternsScreening for malnutrition and frailtyVision and hearing assessment basicsSleep, mood, and cognition linksWhen to refer for further evaluationLesson 8Focused physical and neurological exam elements for older adultsSums up key physical and nerve exam parts most important for geriatric mental health, including walking, movement, sense, and movement disorder signs, and how to record findings and know when to get more health help.
Vital signs and general inspectionGait, balance, and falls assessmentScreening neurological examinationExtrapyramidal and tremor assessmentSigns of delirium and acute illnessWhen to refer to neurology or geriatricsLesson 9Collateral sources and interviewing caregivers: structured questions for daughters/partnersExplains how to get and mix extra info from caregivers, with planned question sets for daughters, partners, and others, while handling privacy, fights, load, and different views on the patient.
When and why collateral is essentialPreparing caregivers for the interviewStructured questions for daughtersStructured questions for partnersReconciling conflicting accountsAddressing caregiver burden and distress
