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Because older persons are likely to have a combination of social, psychological, and medical problems when they become ill, their treatment often requires the mobilization of professional and paraprofessional clinicians from several disciplines. Rather than each treating or helping the patient in turn, a far better approach to health and mental health care for older people comes from a multidisciplinary team working as a unit. By training, practice, and outlook, psychiatrists are vital to the team on several fronts.
Charles M. Gaitz (1987) studied this question.