Abstract
At times, a reviewer can feel like an ancient mariner (both physically and metaphorically) poring over the outlines of territories that adventurous editors such as Anne Hassett and colleagues have painstakingly drawn. It is certainly clear from their book that our understanding of psychosis in late life is akin to Vespucci's nascent maps of South America.
The nosology of late-life psychosis is a panoply of terms, such as: paraphrenia, involutional paranoia (perhaps applicable to fading politicians), late-onset schizophrenia and very-late-onset schizophrenia-like psychosis. With so many variations in definition and nomenclature, epidemiological mapping, characterization and investigation of aetiological factors have proved problematic. The existing data are well summarized and set in a historical context. There are cogent summaries of practical approaches, although the dearth of existing evidence is, perhaps, most disturbing here. Finally, there is a rather unique section on psychosis in conditions such as delirium, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and dementia.
Overall, the coverage of the existing data is as comprehensive as the data allow and thus a considerable achievement. There are shifts in the nomenclature used by different chapter authors that prove confusing at times, and, as in many multi-author books, a modicum of redundancy and variation from assigned topic.
This slim volume, which can be read in an evening, will be useful to advanced trainees, consultants and allied health staff working in geriatric psychiatry. It may serve, as the editors hoped, to encourage more research into an emerging edge of the geriatric psychiatry map. It reminds me, as a reader, of boundaries of our knowledge and, as a reviewer, of the words of a former English Lord of the Admiralty: ‘They put me in charge of the Navy because I am mainly all at sea’.
Jeffrey Looi
Canberra, Australia