In-Congress Workshop 6 - Upskilling CBT Skills to Work with Older Adults: Key Differences from Standard Practice

Anxiety and mood disorders are common in older adults, yet are often dismissed as being a normal part of ageing. Given developmental changes that occur in later life, mood and anxiety disorders can be missed in later life, and regularly co-occur with cognitive and health challenges that can make differential diagnosis difficulty. Further when anxiety and mood disorders are identified, they are often not treated using evidence-based approaches. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses indicate that anxiety and mood disorders can be treated in later life with cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) with large effect size benefits. Given the normal developmental changes that occur in later life, CBT practitioners can feel unsure about how to deliver CBT effectively to older populations. Evidence suggests that some modifications to standard CBT skill delivery can be beneficial in improving treatment outcomes in older adults.

This workshop will review the current literature on evidence-based practice for the assessment and treatment of older adults with anxiety and depression. This workshop will teach participants how to identify symptoms of anxiety and depression in older adults and how these differ from younger populations. In addition, participants will be taught how to deliver the key components of CBT to older adults using age-appropriate methods. This includes learning about the modifications and enhancements that can be made to standard CBT required to maximise treatment effectiveness in the elderly. The workshop assumes prior knowledge of CBT and will include didactic instruction, skill development and practice including role-plays to develop confidence and mastery of CBT skill delivery in older adult samples.