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“Am I Sick Or Just Discarded?”: Psychiatry, Health Care Reform, And The Rise Of Geriatrics In America, 1931-1954, Sophie E. Edelstein
“Am I Sick Or Just Discarded?”: Psychiatry, Health Care Reform, And The Rise Of Geriatrics In America, 1931-1954, Sophie E. Edelstein
Harvey M. Applebaum ’59 Award
Between 1931 and 1941, the United States population over the age of sixty-five increased by over 35 percent. These individuals, however, did not receive increased support. Rather, American politicians and society at large labeled the elderly a ‘burden,’ and passed off their care to the overworked medical personnel of state and federal mental institutions. Sparked by clinical exposure to the influx of elderly patients to mental institutions, Massachusetts psychiatrist David Rothschild identified an erroneous assumption in care practices for senile patients. In many cases, physicians preemptively diagnosed those admitted to state and federal institutions with some form of senile dementia, …