Geriatric psychiatry
About us
At Zucker Hillside Hospital, we offer a wide range of expert services for geriatric patients in need of psychiatric care. In fact, our continuum of outpatient/inpatient geriatric psychiatry care is the most robust in the region.
If you or a loved one is a senior experiencing anxiety, depression, coping challenges, memory loss, or any other emotional disturbance, we can help.
Geriatric Psychiatry Inpatient Program
We offer two inpatient units with a combined 42 beds and a multidisciplinary behavioral health team with special gerontological expertise. Our patients include elders with late-life depression, psychotic disorders, medical/neurological illnesses with psychiatric symptoms and Alzheimer's disease or related conditions with serious behavioral disturbances, such as agitation, aggression, psychosis and mood abnormalities.
Our dedicated geropsychiatric units ensure that patients are grouped in an age-sensitive setting with other older patients, rather than commingled with younger psychiatric patients whose clinical symptoms and behaviors may be especially unsettling to elders.
Geriatric Psychiatry Outpatient Program
Our outpatient (or ambulatory) program offers comprehensive mental health services for older adults and their families from geriatric psychiatrists, geropsychologists, nurses, gerontological social workers and licensed mental health counselors.
We also have a more intensive track, the Senior Treatment Enhanced Program (STEP), which provides multiple visits per week for patients with more acute needs and helps to avoid hospitalization.
In addition, we offer caregiver support services, with special emphasis on successful adaptation for families living with a relative with Alzheimer’s disease or a related dementing condition.
And because we are always looking ahead to develop the gerontological behavioral health leaders of tomorrow, we have a particular focus on multidisciplinary training in geriatric psychiatry for psychiatry residents, geropsychiatry fellows, geriatric medicine fellows and diverse psychology trainees, including externs, interns, postdoctoral fellows and other paramedical trainees.
Collaborations for transitions in care
As part of our commitment to ensuring a continuity of care in the community, we also work with local and regional aging-related agencies whose programs may benefit our patients. These include senior citizen centers, community-based organizations providing mental health services, retirement communities, senior housing/assisted living facilities and nursing homes.
We also collaborate with other Northwell services including our extensive home care and hospice care networks; our House Calls homebound elderly program; the Senior Recovery Program at the Garden City Treatment Center, offering services for older individuals and their families struggling with alcohol and prescription/illicit drug use; and the Litwin-Zucker Research Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Memory Disorders, offering sophisticated diagnostics and opportunities to participate in cutting-edge clinical trials through Northwell’s research arm, the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research.