{"id":15358,"date":"2016-01-22T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.journals.cambridge.org\/?p=15358"},"modified":"2016-01-25T10:18:08","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T10:18:08","slug":"mental-health-implications-for-older-adults-after-natural-disasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2016\/01\/22\/mental-health-implications-for-older-adults-after-natural-disasters\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health implications for older adults after natural disasters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The January International Psychogeriatrics Article of the Month is entitled \u201cMental health implications for older adults after natural disasters \u2013 a systematic review and meta-analysis\u201d by Georgina Parker, David Lie, Dan J. Siskind, Melinda Martin-Khan, Beverly Raphael, David Crompton and Steve Kisely. This blog piece was written for us by one of the paper\u2019s authors, David Lie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our interest in the susceptibility of older adults to disaster arose in the context of an unprecedented spate of natural disasters and dramatic events affecting the Australia- New Zealand region between 2009 and 2011.<\/p>\n

New Zealand was affected by an air crash, earthquakes (notably Christchurch) and the Pike River Mine accident. A number of bushfires affected most regions of Australia notably the Black Saturday fires, which itself had followed a heatwave. Flood and cyclone preoccupied other parts of the country (e.g. Cyclone Yasi) amidst economically disruptive events such as volcanic ashclouds. Taken together these events killed hundreds of people and injured or displaced thousands more.<\/p>\n

The broad psychological impact of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster complex was the closing parenthesis for a period that demanded we knew more about the psychiatry of extreme events and particularly for older adults. Very little seemed to have been written as overview with the exception of a narrative review by Cherniak (2008) and a book on geriatric aspects of disaster psychiatry (2010).<\/p>\n

As we explored the literature, contradictory themes emerged suggesting that older people were as likely, more likely or less likely than younger counterparts in their susceptibility to serious mental health sequelae after disasters.<\/p>\n

Four broad theories to explain age-related resilience or vulnerability are outlined in the introduction to our paper which can be summarised as:<\/p>\n