Psychogeriatrics is an integrative paradigm within which health and disease are part of continuum both part of a total life experience to be viewed as a unified process. Psychogeriatrics abandons the deficit model of aging. Symptoms of psychogeriatric disease must be understood with due consideration of specific symptoms, the personality of the individual, the social and cultural environment, and the psychological reaction of the individual to specific life events. Psychogeriatrics is a model of a broadly conceived somatopsychic and psychosomatic pathology. For example, a stroke may precipitate depression.
Social isolation can impact nutrition or contribute to alcoholism, thereby impacting mental state.
Dementia can lead to poor dental care and significant dental problems. Psychogeriatrics includes prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. The coordination of treatment and rehabilitation is all too often neglected. Yet, rehabilitative measures are an integral part of psychogeriatrics. Psychogeriatrics emphasizes multidisciplinary and especially interdisciplinary not only in services, but also in education and research.