After reading these articles, you should be able to…

Older adults are increasingly turning to supplements and substances marketed for memory and cognition, and they’re asking their psychiatrists about them. Here’s what the evidence supports, and how to have that conversation without dismissing or overpromising.

Prion disease is uncommon but not rare, and psychiatrists are often the first clinicians to see it. Dr. Alice Uflacker explains how to recognize rapidly progressive cognitive and behavioral decline, when to refer, and how modern tools like MRI and RT-QuIC have transformed diagnosis. Palliative planning and family counseling are also addressed.

Nutrition is already part of psychiatric pathophysiology, although it just rarely makes it into the visit. Dr. Rani Polak, a physician-chef and lifestyle medicine specialist, explains how psychiatrists can ask about diet, what nutritional deficiencies to screen for, and how cooking itself can restore structure, agency, and connection in older adults.

Choosing the right treatment is only half the job. This article focuses on how to build care plans older adults can follow using teach-back, simplified written instructions, caregiver engagement, and trusted digital resources. Practical strategies address underuse of effective treatments, misuse from unclear plans, and overuse driven by complexity rather than clinical need.

How much exercise does it take to protect against depression and anxiety in older adults? A large accelerometer-based study puts a number on it, and finds the biggest gains happen at the very bottom of the activity spectrum.

The evidence base for treatment-resistant depression was largely built on younger adults. This meta-analysis asks what works in patients 55 and older. One intervention stands out, especially when suicidality is in the picture.

What if the key to protecting the aging brain isn’t how long patients exercise, but how hard? A comprehensive review suggests cardiorespiratory fitness — not step counts — is the variable that matters most for dementia prevention.

Tau-PET is the gold standard for detecting preclinical Alzheimer’s pathology, but it costs thousands and isn’t widely available. What if a $200 blood test could do the same job?

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