Clinical Manual of Geriatric Psychopharmacology, 2nd ed

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edited by Sandra A. Jacobson, MD. American Psychiatric Publishing Inc, Arlington, VA, 2014, 536 pages, $90.00 (paper).

Clinical Manual of Geriatric Psychopharmacology, an invaluable resource, is now in its second edition. Like its predecessor first edition, it is written in a clear, concise, and extremely useful manner; if only all manuals were written thus.

Dr Jacobson, an expert geriatric psychopharmacologist, has presented the reader with a comprehensive review of the pharmacology of psychiatric medications as they are applied to elderly patients. Readers will find tables containing doses, side effects, and pharmacokinetics. Drug classes (by pharmacology and by use) as well as individual drugs are summarized in neat paragraphs including the different available preparations of each drug. Many tables of drug interactions are provided, a resource that is especially useful for the clinician who is prescribing to an elderly patient likely to be taking many other medications.

Many clinical manuals provide comprehensive psycho­pharmacology information, but they rarely tell the reader how to approach and treat the patient. Here, Dr Jacobson deviates from the usual. As in the first edition, she uses an outline format to describe the diagnosis and treatment of an individual geriatric patient. For example, her section on using antidepressants includes guidelines on choice of drug, dose and titration, course of response, monitoring the treatment, duration of treatment, managing treatment resistance, and adverse effects.

Included in this second edition are updated sections on treatments for substance abuse, movement disorders, neurocognitive disorders, and pain. Treatment algorithm suggestions are also presented in useful tabular format.

I strongly recommend this second edition to clinicians who treat elderly patients. But it is such an excellent resource that I think all clinicians would benefit from its readily available information. I know I have.

Carl Salzman, MD

[email protected]

Author affiliation: Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.

Potential conflicts of interest: None reported.

J Clin Psychiatry 2015;76(6):e838 (doi:10.4088/JCP.15bk09797).

© Copyright 2015 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.