Populations Served

Alessi Psychiatry and Life Center hopes to provide services to a broad range of clinical populations throughout life. By convention, these populations are often divided into four age groupings: children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly.

Recently, it has become apparent that a number of conditions exist across the entire lifespan present during childhood but then continue having manifestations for the remainder of a person’s life. Therefore, it is enormously important that these conditions are recognized as early as possible to begin specific interventions that might be required. Early intervention has been shown to not only improve the management of a condition, but also the overall quality of a person’s life.

When adults are referred for evaluation, if they have children in their immediate family, there may be value in evaluating the child or adolescent as well to see if a condition could be hereditary and identified. Inversely, if a child is evaluated and a parent has a mental condition, it may provide insight into the child’s condition.

Frequently, multiple conditions can occur simultaneously at any age. This is often referred to as a comorbidity, where there is a co-occurrence of two conditions, such as depression and anxiety, in the same individual. There is also polymorbidity where there are multiple conditions, such as autistic spectrum disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, in the same individual. This is of particular importance when understanding the selection of therapeutic interventions and the prognosis of the case.

Additionally, the presentation of conditions in different age groups can vary greatly. Our clinicians are able to understand and identify conditions as they present and decipher if symptoms can be attributed to one or several conditions. This requires extensive exposure to a broad range of populations with these conditions and follow-up after interventions have been implemented.