Do old age psychiatrists miss physical illnesses?

We studied the ability of old age psychiatrists to accurately diagnose physical disorders in elderly patients. A group of 24 psychogeriatric patients who died in hospital were matched for age and sex with 24 elderly patients who died under the care of other specialists in the same hospital. Postmortem findings and premortem diagnoses were compared retrospectively and the two groups showed high but similar levels of diagnostic discrepancies, despite the greater prevalence of dementia in the psychogeriatric group. The results show that old age psychiatrists are as successful as other specialists in identifying physical illnesses in their elderly patients.