Geriatric Psychology

Geriatric psychology, also called geropsychology, is a subfield of psychology that specializes in the mental and physical health of individuals in the later stages of life. Practitioners investigate psychological capacities that decline with age, such as memory, learning and coordination, and they conduct diagnosis, research and treatment of mental health conditions affecting elderly populations across settings including hospitals, clinics and nursing homes, with key areas of concentration including loneliness, depression, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and Parkinson's disease. Geriatric psychology is distinguished from geriatric psychiatry, a medical subspecialty whose practitioners are authorized to prescribe medication, by its emphasis on studying how neurological and physiological changes influence elderly behavior and quality of life through psychological rather than pharmacological means.