Services for Older People
Who uses our services?
Mental Health services for Older People provides mental health inpatient and community services for people with dementia of all ages, and people over the age of 65 with other conditions such as depression and psychosis.
How can we help?
The service is supported by a range of activities such as Carer Education, Training and Education, and Liaison support for other services provided to professional and family carers.
Dementia and depression are the most common mental health disorders of later life although some can also experience psychosis or substance misuse difficulties.
Depression to some degree affects 1 in 7 of the population aged over 65. Some of these people will require the help of specialist mental health services and access to the full range of treatment for more serious and complex difficulties.
Dementia is a term used to cover a range of diagnoses which cause progressive deterioration of memory and other aspects of mental functioning. Five percent of people over the age of 65 have dementia and this rises with increasing age to 20% of the over 80's. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease. We provide a range of services to support early diagnosis and intervention plus offer help, advice and support with more complex problems associated with Dementia.
If you would like to find out more about the services that we provide for older age adults, please click on the links on the right hand side of this page.
Our Team
There are many different people that you may see in Older People's Services, these may include:
- Consultant Psychiatrist for Older People
- Psychiatric Doctors
- Psychologist
- Community Mental Health Nurse
- Physiotherapist
- Occupational Therapist
- Speech and Language Therapists
- Support Workers
All of the people are there to support you, your family and carers and provide the services that you or the person you care for require.
How do people access our service?
People generally access our services via the GP. The links on the right tell you more about referral for each of our services. Some services like our Memory Assessment Service accept self referrals.
Assessments
Most people referred to our service have a standard assessment looking at all of your needs. A general assessment can take up to 2 hours and covers such things as your current situation, problems, difficulties, health, social circumstances and strengths. Further assessments are normally conducted to look at specific problem areas in a more detailed way. We also offer carers an assessment of their needs.
What happens during your treatment?
After assessment, the person coordinating your care normally agrees a plan with you. The plan will identify what treatments you will be having and for how long and who with. There are regular opportunities to review these. The plan normally involves contact with one or more professionals for a period of time.
