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On 19 June 2004, the French group arranged its annual conference day, where members can present their research work. The main topic this year dealt with a new method of observing and diagnosing somatic patients, presented by Professor Jean Benjamin Stora. He described a “psychosomatic classification” model, where psychic, neuronal, and somatic functioning are integrated and where the domestic, social, and occupational environments of the patient are also included. The method is structured according to a “psychosomatic” grid composed of five axes. The grid has not only facilitated individual diagnosis but can also be used in epidemiologic researches. It was developed during the last 20 years but is not yet statistically verified. Jean Benjamin Stora has used it in studies on cancer and heart-transplant patients. It is seen as important to estimate the severity of the symptoms and thus attain a risk profile. This approach is radically different from the DSM-IV approach, because it implements psychoanalytic and psychosomatic concepts and relates to the human psyche as structured according to Sigmund Freud's two “topiques.”
Irene Epelbaum, clinical neuropsychologist, gave a talk on depression and the neurodegenerative diseases of old people. If the problem of dementia in elderly patients attracts all the attention, then depression in the old might be overlooked and underestimated. Demented states represent 20-40% of cases, and depression 40-60%. Neurodegenerative diseases can, of course, worsen depression.