Roos C. van der Mast is professor in Old Age Psychiatry, director of Psychiatry Residency Training and supervisor of the Netherlands Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Apart from that, she is a professor in Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Antwerp (Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Institute -CAPRI-) in Belgium. She also is a chairperson of the permanent Committee on fitness to drive and member of the Presidium of the Health Council, a chairperson of the Committee for the inspection of Residency Training Programs of the Netherlands Association of Psychiatry, a board member of the Netherlands Journal of Medicine and a member of the Supervisory Board of the ‘Viersprong’, a national center for Personality, Family and Behaviour.

More information about Rosa van der Mast

Roos C. van der Mast is professor in Old Age Psychiatry, director of Psychiatry Residency Training and supervisor of the Netherlands Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Apart from that, she is a professor in Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Antwerp (Collaborative Antwerp Psychiatric Institute -CAPRI-) in Belgium. She also is a chairperson of the permanent Committee on fitness to drive and member of the Presidium of the Health Council, a chairperson of the Committee for the inspection of Residency Training Programs of the Netherlands Association of Psychiatry, a board member of the Netherlands Journal of Medicine and a member of the Supervisory Board of the ‘Viersprong’, a national center for Personality, Family and Behaviour. 

Old Age Psychiatry

In the western society, the number of older and oldest old people is rising enormously. Increasing age often comes with increasing problems in many domains of daily living. (Chronic) illness, decline of sight and hearing, loneliness and social isolation, as well as cognitive and functional decline threaten well-being and quality of life of older people. These age-related phenomena contribute strongly to the (physical and environmental) stress-related emotional and psychiatric disorders in late life such as depression and apathy, delirium, and psychological and behavioral problems in dementia. Research on etiology, risk factors, course and treatment of psychopathology among older people is therefore needed. In many respects, older people differ from younger adults. I am intrigued by the complex relation between ageing and psychopathology, particularly with respect to neurodegeneration and the (cardiovascular) heart-brain-axis.

In our center for Ageing and Neuropsychiatry, we try to unravel this complex relation with a focus on clinical research.

Academic career

Roos C. van der Mast finished Medical School (1978), her training in Psychiatry (1983) and her doctoral research (November 2, 1994) at the Erasmus Medical Center/Erasmus University Rotterdam. Starting her career in consultation-liaison psychiatry, she was a visiting fellow at the Consultation-Liaison department of het Albert Einstein Institute & Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Her doctoral thesis concerned an important clinical problem in the general hospital and November 2, 1994 she defended her thesis, called ‘Delirium after cardiac surgery, a prospective study’. From 2000-2004, she was amongst others a chairperson of the Guideline Committee on Delirium. From delirium to old age psychiatry was a small step and in 2007 she was appointed professor in Old Age Psychiatry at the Leiden University Medical Centre/University Leiden. The title of her inaugural lecture on May 16^th, 2008, is ‘Figments in ageing’. Since then, she is engaged in patient care, training and scientific research in the field of old age psychiatry.

Prizes and honourable appointments

In 1995 Roos C. van der Mast received for her dissertation the Ramaer medal, an award for the most deserving achievement in the field of psychiatric research, and in 2008 the yearly Scientific award, both on behalf of the Netherlands Psychiatric Association. In 2014 she was awarded the yearly Educational award. In April 2018 she will give the two-yearly Pieter Baan lecture, an award for her scientific oeuvre on behalf of the Netherlands Psychiatric Association.

Roos C. van der Mast is a chairperson of the permanent Committee on fitness to drive and member of the Presidium of the Health Council, a chairperson of the Committee for the inspection of Residency Training Programs of the Registration committee Medical Specialists, a board member of the Netherlands Journal of Medicine and member of the Supervisory Board of ‘The Viersprong’, a national center for Personality, Family and Behaviour.

Publications