[Current problems of gerontopsychiatric epidemiology and organization of gerontopsychiatric care].

A wide-scale programme of gerontopsychiatric epidemiological research using various mutually supportive methodological approaches (analysis of the statistics and examination of representative samples of the general population and of the group of registered patients) has made it possible to obtain the maximally complete picture of the mental health of elderly patients residing at a limited area of a large industrial city. It has been found that among the elderly patients registered at mental institutions there is an ever growing number of patients with endogenic psychoses while individuals with age-related diseases proper constitute only a comparatively small portion. Thus, schizophrenia has accounted for 43.5% of all cases. Ratio of patients with psychotic and non-psychotic disturbances at this age constitutes 3.8:1.