Publisher's Synopsis
This volume is a logical successor to the BAP Monograph number 3, 'Psychopharmacology of Old Age', published in 1982. The change in title reflects the increasing morbidity of cognitive disorders in the elderly and their socio-economic consequences, as exemplified by Alzheimer's disease. Whereas the psychopharmacological treatment of psychiatric disorders is relatively satisfactory, we are far from discovering effective therapeutic interventions to influence the cognitive deficits that often develop in the later decades of life.
Physical, mental and psychological changes that take place in the later stages of life have a profound effect on drug activity and any pharmacological treatment must take these into account. Hence the justification for considering these issues in the exclusive domain of the elderly.
The sections on cognitive disorders are mainly concerned with the future development of effective drugs to combat anatomical and physiological accompaniments of Alzheimer's disease. In considering the psychopharmacology of psychiatric disorders, the main emphasis is on contemporary developments in improving treatment by the introduction of new drugs that, if not therapeutically superior to those already in use, are safer and easier to take.
