Clinical characteristics of schizophrenia, depression, and Alzheimer's diseases among older adults: a retrospective study of 271 consecutive admissions.

Objective: This study aims to identify the clinical characteristics of schizophrenia, depression, and AD among older adults. Methods: General information of patients was collected, including diagnosis, age, gender, level of education, marital status, drinking behavior, smoking behavior, course of mental disorder, type of admission, history of modified electroconvulsive therapy (MECT) and hospitalization period. The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale (GAD-7), Insight and Treatment Attitudes Questionnaire (ITAQ), and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were employed to evaluate the participants' mental status. The Functional Activities Questionnaire (FAQ), Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), Barthel ADL Index, Standardized Swallowing Assessment (SSA), and Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA) were applied to measure social and daily living function. The Nurses' Global Assessment of Suicide Risk (NGASR) and The Brøset Violence Checklist (BVC) were used to assess the patients' risk of suicide. Results: Totally 271 participants were recruited, the numbers of participants with schizophrenia, depression, and Alzheimer's diseases (AD), were 81 (29.9%), 85 (31.4%), and 105 (38.7%), respectively. One-way ANOVA was used to compare the variance of the crude score results among three groups of subjects. The results showed that patients with depression had the highest GDS total score, followed by patients with AD, and patients with schizophrenia had the lowest score ( Conclusions: Patients with geriatric psychosis may experience abnormalities in various aspects that influenced daily living, including disorders of thinking, cognition, emotion, and behavior. Patients with schizophrenia have cognitive impairment. Cognitive training and medication are important. Patients with depression were considered to be at a greater risk for suicide compared to those with schizophrenia and AD. Active clinical measures must be adopted to improve patients' depressive symptoms, change their suicidal attitudes, and enhance their self-confidence. Patients with AD were prone to respiratory and neurological diseases. Treatment of respiratory infections and hypoxia and other respiratory diseases would be necessary, and cognitive function training should be conducted. In addition, regarding to high risk of swallowing disorders and malnutrition, swallowing function training should be carried out to ensure food intake and prevent malnutrition. Driven by psychiatric symptoms, violent behavior was prevalent, thus effective communication and de-escalation techniques are needed. Although the symptoms of these three diseases are different, timely professional intervention and support from family members are urgently needed.