Day care in geriatric psychiatry.

Psychiatric day care for the ederly is still in its relative infancy in this country, and we can expect a great increase in demand. Treatment may be less prominent among the functions of a psychogeriatric day hospital than supportive care and tolerance of odd and confused behaviour. Psychogeriatric day patients tend to become permanent, their attendance being more often terminated by inpatient admission than by discharge; in demented patients this is because their needs are unlikely to abate, and these patients often need to come daily; in many functional patients it is because they become dependent on the day hospital, and manage quite well provided they can come once a week. Thus it is only rarely that short-term day hospital attendance provides an alternative to short-term hospitalisation; more commonly it is an extension of long-term care, or an alternative to long-term hospitalisation. Some practicalities are considered, and some still open issues.