Citation

Blond JC, Treille PO, Reybard A, Bagnon P, Sibelle C, Carré B. NPG Neurologie - Psychiatrie - Geriatrie 2005; 5(29): 30-36.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005)

DOI

10.1016/S1627-4830(05)82604-2

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Suicide is frequent among elderly persons in France, but nothing is said about it ! Unfortunately, little has been undertaken in our country to prevent the suicide of elderly persons. These observations raise the question of the role of the elderly person in our modern society. This situation led us to propose a Preventive action unit for elderly persons in distressful situations as part of the regional health program. The first step was to acquire knowledge on the reality of suicidal ideation among the elderly :-the importance of the "suicide phenomenon", which shows a statistical trend to increase while on an individual level recognition of the risk is clouded by personal defense systems developed around old age and death;-the clinical presentation of suicidal ideation, which is specific in the very old subject because of the related crisis of recognizing old age potentializing suicidal ideation. Secondly, the program is structured:-to help caregivers and family become more aware of the subject's suffering (professional visit to the subject's home);-to facilitate transmission of the subject's complaint to persons able to help and to analyze the complaint in order to propose adapted responses. These conditions create a network around the elderly person, associating medicosocial workers with the Preventive action unit which acts as a consulting and organizing body. In practice, the Preventive action unit, composed of members of the local center for Information and coordination in gerontology (CLIC) and the members of the Medicopsychological center for elderly persons (CMP), implements:-actions in partnership with professionals working with elderly persons in difficulty: hot line, group analysis of individual cases, networking interventions, counseling, organization of meetings between the different protagonists, follow-up;-awareness actions targeting gerontology professionals, e.g. half-day seminaries associating theory and practical applications. The program has elaborated evaluation tools for suicide risk assessment: an evaluation grid for distressful situations and also plays a role of mediation, guiding the home visitor. The Preventive action unit has already undertaken several actions including follow-up, working with the professional network, leading seminaries, and encouraging the interest of gerontologists. This program offers hope for the development of a common culture for the prevention of suicide in elderly subjects at risk. © 2005 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Language: fr

Keywords

suicide; prevention; Complaint; elderly people; medico-social network