Management of Personality Disorders in the Emergency Department in Elderly

The management of patients with Personality Disorders (PD) is a problem that arises relatively frequently in Emergency Departments (ED); this could be even more problematic in geriatric patients for their particular condition and comorbidities. 

Personality disorders tend to be under diagnosed in clinical settings, and it has been well established that patients with some kind of PD, such as Borderline Personality Disorder are often difficult to treat because of the persistence and severity of their symptoms and because of the negative effects of the pathology on thetreatment relationship. Few studies have considered the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among all patients examined in an emergency service and even less evaluated the prevalence of personality disorders.