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. 2019 Oct;10(4):721-724.
doi: 10.1055/s-0039-3399603. Epub 2019 Dec 11.

Mental Health Care Delivery for Older Adults in Rural Greece: Unmet Needs

Vaios Peritogiannis  1 , Charalampos Lixouriotis  2
Affiliations

Mental Health Care Delivery for Older Adults in Rural Greece: Unmet Needs

Vaios Peritogiannis et al. J Neurosci Rural Pract. 2019 Oct.

Abstract

Mental disorders may go unrecognized and undertreated in older adults. This is the rationale for the launch of specialized mental health services for the elderly in high resourced settings. Rural areas, however, do not receive adequate mental health care owing to socioeconomic and geographical reasons, and this is the case of rural Greece, where research on mental health of the elderly is scarce. This article discusses the challenges of providing mental health care for older adults in rural Greece and the available options. Care can be delivered through the existing rural mental health services that are the mobile mental health units and through the primary care physicians. Training in psychogeriatrics for the personnel of the former and in mental health for the latter is warranted.

Keywords: mental health care; mobile mental health units; older adults; rural areas.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors’ ContributionsConflict of Interest All the authors have made equal contribution to the article. None declared.

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