Therapeutic Nutrition for the Elderly with Mental Disorders
https://doi.org/10.30629/2618-6667-2026-24-1-129-139
Abstract
Background: therapeutic nutrition is an important component of the complex treatment of psychiatric patients, the individualization of which in the elderly requires special knowledge of gerontodietology. Scientifically based ideas about the nutrition specificities in mental disorders in elderly and senile people have not been sufficiently developed. The aim was to substantiate the need for differentiated approach to therapeutic nutrition in geriatric psychiatry. Discussion: generalization of gerontopsychiatric diseases pathogenetic concepts in the aspect of nutrition of old age people has scientific and practical significance. Degenerative (involutional) and vascular geneses, as well as combined (vascular-degenerative) pathogenesis, form organic brain lesions of varying severity and rate of progression. This is why the specificities of the course of mental disorders affect many metabolic processes in the body of the elderly. Studies have shown that 25–90% of elderly patients hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals experience the development of muscle wasting, about 50% suffer from protein-energy deficiency, hypovitaminosis, most often due to malnutrition. Therapeutic nutrition of psychiatric patients in both state and private medical institutions in Russia is provided in accordance with orders of the Ministry of Health using a unified nomenclature of diets (system of standard diets) to select a diet that compensates for metabolic deficiencies and involutional metabolic disorders, as well as eating disorders, associated with the influence of psychotropic pharmacotherapy, with its nutritional composition, Conclusion: the composition of diet types for different pathologies and in each specific clinical case depends on the characteristics of the course of the disease, its stage and pathogenesis, the state of the body's metabolic processes and eating disorders, associated with the influence of psychopharmacotherapy. The methodology for modifying differentiated diet needs considering last advances in understanding the problems of gerontology, geriatric psychiatry, comorbidity and pharmacological interactions.
About the Author
A. Yu. Baranovski
St. Petersburg State University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Andrey Yu. Baranovski, Dr. Sci. (Med.), Professor, Head of Research Clinical and Educational Center of Gastroenterology and Dietology, Medical Institute
St. Petersburg
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For citations:
Baranovski A.Yu. Therapeutic Nutrition for the Elderly with Mental Disorders. Psychiatry (Moscow) (Psikhiatriya). 2026;24(1):129-139. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.30629/2618-6667-2026-24-1-129-139
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