IPA Affiliate Organizations

Portugese Association for Psychogerontology

Marcelo Feio has worked as a psychiatrist at Santa Maria Hospital in Lisbon since 1990. At the recent IPA Congress in Nice Marcelo represented the Portuguese Association for Psychogerontology (APP) and addressed the IPA Board of Directors. APP was created in September 2000, and is still a small association with 150 members. However, APP brings together people of different backgrounds working in this field since the 1970s. Thus the APP is already recognized in Portugal as an accredited professional organization. 

Portugal is a member of the European Union with 10 million inhabitants, one third of whom live near the two largest cities, Lisbon and Oporto in the North. In the last 70 years, life expectancy at birth has increased by around 35 years. Now 15 percent of the population is aged 65 years or more. Most of them do not work, can’t read, are poor and are either alone or ill or both. This consfellature is called the “isolation syndrome of the elderly.” In a general way the demography is similar to that of other countries of the European Union (EU-15). However, in terms of the economy, Portugal is still below the rates of occidental countries. 

Without financial support, Portugal will find it difficult to implement social programs to help its oldest citizens. The History of Gerontology in Portugal started in 1951 with the creation of the Portuguese Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology one year after the foundation of the International Association of Gerontology, in Liège. A second Portuguese group, called the National Group for Elderly Politics (CNAPI), appeared 30 years later and ceased activities after five years. In the 1990s, the Portuguese Association of Gerontology (APG) was founded and is now directed by Prof João Barreto of Oporto. Finally, in 2000 after the International Year of Older Persons, APP was born with the patronage of Maria José Ritta (the Portuguese first lady) and the orientation of father Vitor Feytor Pinto, the High Commissionaire for Health Pastoral in Portugal.

APP is a private, nonprofit institution of social interest, which doesn’t represent any political or religious position and aims to defend the human being as well as individual and social rights. Its main goal is to build a working structure qualified in human, technical and scientific aspects to promote psychogerontology in Portugal. To accomplish this, APP maintains regular contacts with several local centers and institutions related to aging issues. Since beginning activities in September 2000, APP proposed to its members a list of issues on aging that are deemed the most important to be studied in Portugal. To disseminate its ideas, APP organized, together with the University of Medicine in Lisbon, a post-graduate course on psychogerontology and the first Meeting on Psychogerontology was held in Lisbon in November 2001. At the same time APP is pressing the Portuguese College of Physicians to recognize gerontopsychiatry as a sub-speciality of psychiatry and encouraging the Portuguese Department for the Mental Health to name a National Counseling Group for matters of Aging in Portugal.

The success of APP will depend on the interchange of ideas and programs with other similar organizations worldwide. This is why it is so important for APP to be involved with IPA. APP looks forward to participating actively in the success of  IPA in providing “Better Mental Health for Older People.”

For more information, please contact Marcelo Feio at marcelo.feio@ip.pt.

IPA Bulletin June 2002