Guideline 9: Panic Disorder

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Note from the editors: We asked the experts about the diagnosis and treatment of a number of other conditions in elderly patients: panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, hypochondriasis, neuropathic pain, severe nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy, motion sickness, irritability and hostility in the absence of a major psychiatric syndrome, and insomnia/sleep disturbance in the absence of a major psychiatric syndrome or discrete medical cause. Although the experts did not recommend the use of antipsychotics for any of these conditions, we present their recommendations concerning the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions in Guidelines 9-12 in an effort to make these guidelines as clinically useful as possible for all clinicians who treat elderly patients, including primary care physicians and internists.

The features that the experts considered most important in diagnosing panic disorder in an older patient agree closely with the DSM-IV criteria. The experts considered recurrent unexpected panic attacks the most important discriminating feature.’ ‹’ ‹