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The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and correlation of cognitive impairments, major depression, and depressive symptoms among elderly medical inpatients, and to compare the degree of depressive symptomatology as well as cognitive deterioration in possible vascular dementia and possible Alzheimer's disease. In a department of internal medicine, 100 (36 male, 64 female) 65-year-old or older patients were examined by a semistructured interview, and assessed by the Hachinski Ischemic Scale, the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HDS), and the Modified Mini-Mental State (MMMS) Examination. In our total sample, the MMMS total score was (±SD) 76.0 ± 15.5 and the HDS total score was (±SD) 12.0 ± 6.1. Based on DSM-IV criteria, major depression was established in 11 patients. Deterioration of cognitive functions was seen in 66 patients; cognitive impairment was mild in 30 patients, moderate in 19, and severe in 17. Forty-six patients had mild depressive symptoms and 27 had severe depressive symptoms. In summary, a high prevalence of cognitive dysfunction and depressive symptomatology was detected in our study, illustrating the importance of psychiatric care in elderly medical inpatients.

In the majority of schizophrenia patients, administration of new atypical antipsychotics seemed to result in higher levels of patient satisfaction than did conventional drugs. This had a favourable effect on the patients' attitude to the new medication, which may improve compliance. More patients perceived benefits related to quality of life than to efficacy. Clinical improvement was an important, but not the sole, determinant of patient satisfaction with medication.

psychological trauma or only physical agression) and cognitive and psycho-affective variables.Otherwise, we found a statistical difference on immediate memory as far as the delay of examination was concerned.Furthermore, most of the cognitive dysfunctions were correlated with the severity of anxiety and depression. PTSD seemed also perturbing work capacity. The details of these data will be demonstrated.