for the Aged Karger, Basel 1980 XII + 216 pp.; SFr. 39.-ISBN 3-8055-1204-X This book deals with an objective assessment of the extensive experimental and clinical documentation of drug treatment of diseases of the brain in advanced age. The reader learns about drugs that are increasingly used with success for different forms of cognitive dysfunctions in old age. The practitioner working with elderly patients will find the full range of information required for an optimal drug therapy currently

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... vailable. In the first section, epidemiology of mental illness in the aged, behavioral abnormalities and aging theories are discussed. Another chapter deals with psycho-geriatric disorders in old age as depression, anxiety, delusion, disturbance of consciousness, memory disturbance and dementia. Also diagnostic techniques used in psychogeriatrics are briefly reviewed. An excellent survey of affective disorders, paraphrenia, ar-teriosclerotic and Alzheimer's dementia displays recent findings in the literature. It becomes evident that the cholinergic system is of major importance in the debilitating process of senile dementia. The most extended part of the book gives an excellent critical overview of drug treatment of senile brain dysfunctions. The reader becomes very well informed about drugs with effects on the symptoms accompanying senile dementia (neuroleptics, antidepressants, hypnotics), and those active on cerebral metabolism and transmitter performance. The last chapter deals with pharmacokinetics, drug side effects and drug interactions in psychogeriatric therapy. The monograph is clearly divided into 6 chapters and many subsections. A glossary of drugs helps to distinguish generic and brand names. The opinions put forward by the author are enlightening for an understanding or evaluation of the current geriatric psychopharmacological problems. Psychiatrists, psychologists, psychopharmacologists, geriatricians, general practitioners and others who work or do research in this field will find it a useful reference. For those clinicians and pharmacologists to whom geropsychiatric drug treatment is of peripheral interest but who wish to know the latest details of all aspects of gerontopharmacologic research results, this handy monograph would be the one of choice among the few available. W. Meier-Ruge, Basel C. Eisdorfer, W.E. Fann Psychopharmacology of Aging MTP Press, Lancaster 1980 271 pp.; E20.50 ISBN 0-85200-549-0 This is a collection of 11 reviews in the field of psychopharmacology of age-related disorders of man. A noteworthy statement in the Introduction says 'we can no longer be content with a simple late-life category of 65 or older. Social scientists have recognized the existence of 'young-old' and 'old-old' among the aged. There is little or no evidence of generalized intellectual decline among healthy persons between ages 65 and 75, but decline after 75 does occur. For the scientist, it may mean that a process of change is not linear, but that with later age the change may be accelerated and assume different mathematical functions'. The stated purpose of this book is to focus attention upon the effects of later life on medication. Since 10 of the 26 authors come from