Depression Among the Elderly

Depression is one of the most recurrently investigated psychological disorders within the area of medical R&D (Montorio & Izal, 1996). A number of exhaustive researches have been carried out to study its symptoms and impacts on different patients belonging to different personal and professional attributes and most of these researchers depicted that depression in the elderly people is very frequent and in spite of number of researches in this context, it is often undiagnosed or untreated. To add to this jeopardy, it has also been estimated that only 10% out of the total depressed elderly individuals receive proper diagnosis and treatment (Holroyd et al, 2000). And for that reason, an authentic

What is depression? Depression is one of the most common mental disorders. It does not only affect your mind but your entire body as well. Depression can lead to things such as loss of interest in your everyday activities, weight loss or gain, insomnia, feelings of unworthiness and even thoughts of suicide. Luckily, depression can be cured through medication and therapy. Many people believe that the older they are the less likely they are to suffer from this mental disorder. They believe that they are wiser and know how to handle curveballs when life throws it at them. However, depression does not discriminate meaning that no matter what age or gender you are, you can be at risk of experiencing it.

Psychodynamic theorists believe that depression stems from dependence and loss. This idea is associated with the idea of losing a loved one like a parent or grandparent. This theory concludes that some people will regress into the oral stage of life and project the feelings they have while mourning on to themselves and become depressed. Most get over these feelings but some continue to get worse. Other ideas associated with this are imagined loss like one loses a job they have held for many years. In this fashion one unconsciously connects the loss of their job as equal to the loss of a

The purpose of this research is to review factors that trigger elderly depression states, their physical and mental health conditions,

Depression is a very prevalent mental disorder that many people have in the world. Depression can be termed as consistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities that result in an impairment in daily functioning. Depression can be characterized by hopelessness, and a pessimistic view of the world. People who suffer with depression should take act immediately in receiving help because they could possibly commit suicide and or poor health outcomes. Many older adults who receive help are more than likely to reduce the severity of depression. Also, older adults that receive help by using evidence based practice from their clinicians

1. Death- The death of a loved one or friends can be quite devastating to an individual. Death causes the person to be despondent and dejected knowing the person will never be able to come back. Depending on how they were related to the deceased person, the depression of an individual can last days, weeks, months or even years. It is normal to experience depression due to death.

Some individuals may struggle with the grieving process. Poor coping mechanisms can lead to major depressive disorders and even anxiety. Grieving individuals may exhibit signs and symptoms of poor physical health because they stop taking care of themselves. Widows and widowers have 8 to 50 times higher suicide rate than the overall population (Snyder, 2009).

Grief refers to the psychological reaction to the bereavement, the death of a loved one. When a person dies who has been a close companion and with whom we have had a close bond with, many changes in our life have to be taken in. Death of a long-term partner can force on us a need to redefine ourselves and it is not an easy task. Grief becomes a problem when someone gets stuck in grief, this is know as “complicated grief” or “chronic grief”. Factors that contribute to this include a lack of family support and remaining overly focused on past memories. Returning to normal everyday activities is the most obvious sign that the grieving stage is over.

It is something that should be addressed itmediatly. Depression can cause death if left untreated. Often time depression can be related to suicide. Depression in the elderly is not uncommon. The elderly are more prone to having depression rather than youth. Depression in the elderly is called late life depression. Late life depression needs to be recognized more. According to the psychiatric times Late-life depression is both under recognized and undertreated. A person etiology of depression can be a number of things. Just like a person symptoms, they could have one symptom or several of them it just depends on the person. What works for one person may not work for everyone. Depression in the elderly depend on the person and their situation. Everyone is different therefore so is the etiology, symptom, and treatment of the depression for the

The stages of mourning and grief are universal and are experienced by people from all walks of life. Mourning occurs in response to an individual’s own terminal illness or to the death of a valued being, human or animal. There are five stages of normal grief that were first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying.”

2) Why do the elderly get depressed if its not apart of aging? I base this question on the NIM (2015), who said that depression is a common problem among older adults, but it is not a normal part of aging.

Finally, older people tend to have more anxiety present in their depression than younger patients do (winter 1996).

Depression is considered to be one of the most common emotional problems among elderly individuals. The prevalence of depressive symptoms in the general population is at its lowest incidence during the middle-age years, increases throughout late adulthood, and reaches its highest level in adults age 80 or above (Glass, Kasl & Berkman, 1997). Ot-her experts reported that among elderly who live in the community, the prevalence of the depressive symptoms has ranged from 11 % to 44 % with an average of about 20%. About 43 %of the institutionalized elderly, however, were diagnosed as having depression (Reeker, 1997). Studies conducted in America revealed that depression

Depression is one of the leading causes of premature death in the geriatric population, and one of the highest burdens of overall disability. Depression rates are around 13% in primary care settings.

Belmaker and Agam (2008) described that depression is very similar to the normal emotions of sadness or bereavement, except that sadness does not subside even after the external cause is removed. Likewise, when bereavement or normal sadness exacerbates disproportionately to the external cause, depression is likely appropriate to be considered.