Depression With Elderly Women

The Older Americans Act (OAA) funds critical services that keep older adults healthy and independent—services like meals, job training, senior centers, caregiver support, transportation, health promotion, benefits enrollment, and more. The Act is overdue for reauthorization—and Congress needs to seize this opportunity to update and renew its commitment to these programs and those they serve. To ensure America’s aging population is able to maintain and live healthy lives provisions are needed to the current OAA. These provisions include:

Adult children caring for their aging parent or grandparent provide the majority of informal support. This is due in part because grandmothers “raise their grandchildren to believe in lifetime reciprocity”, grandchildren often feel an obligation to care for their aging family members (Novak, 2012, p.191). Furthermore, a heavy reliance on family support may be due to a lack of trust exists towards formal health care programs, a lack of access, or a general lack of

There are many services which are available to the elderly population, these services are usually provided to

Identifying and addressing health disparities for the rural elderly has been a great challenge. Problems of the elderly who live alone in poverty in Baker County are considerable when additional factors such as increased physical limitations, medical needs, and social isolation are taken into account. As a vulnerable population, the rural elderly are affected by their low socioeconomic standing, lower literacy rates, declining health, declines in cognitive functioning and relative lack of available nearby health resources. Seniors often live on a fixed income from pensions or other retirement plans and social security. Additionally, inability to purchase affordable health insurance,

In the fiscal year 2010, (O’Shaughnessy, 2012) only about 5.1%, or 3 million people, out of the 57.8 million people age sixty and over, received services funded by the Act. These services included home delivered meals, home care, personal care, or case management services on a regular or intensive basis. About 14%, 8 million people, received other services, such as transportation, congregate meals, or information and assistance on a not so regular basis. A report was made by the Government Accountability Office stating that their findings were that many older people are in need of meals and other supportive services to help remain independent in their own communities, but a large portion of them are not getting the help they are in need of. Some barriers causing this lack of help are lack of funding and lack of knowledge among the older Americans that they may be eligible for benefits and services can be available for them.

In these services they would usually be offered help with activities of daily life, such as eating or bathing. Some home services also give them other benefits such as residential services, personal care or case management. To give more open details on experiences of Medicaid beneficiaries who need home and communities based services Musumeci and Reaves discuss nine seniors who are disabled and who live in different states. Those include people with different kind of disabilities which can be either developmental, physical or intellectual and issues such as autism, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and their functional limitations that are there because they aged (Musumeci & Reaves, 2014). Based on interview that were given from these people to the Kaiser Commission in 2013 based on Medicaid and uninsured, these peoples’ profiles clearly show us how beneficiaries funds, well-being, status of their employment are affected by the coverage of Medicaid and the role these services play in their daily lives (Musumeci & Reaves, 2014). In the last years states are trying to work on rebalancing long-term care system by dedicating more spending to home and community care rather than institutional care. The reason is this being the efforts that are driven by beneficiaries who are

As the number of the older adults is increasing so are those living with depression; therefore, it is important that perceptions around older adult depression be studied. According to the study done by the US Department of Commerce, it is estimated that the older adult population will more than likely double by 2050 and of 80 million and many as 1 in 5 Americans would be considered as an older adult (US Department of Commerce, 1995). There are many losses that accompany the aging process. These include the loss of loved ones and their independence. They begin to feel as though they will depend on their families for the rest of their lives. These factors scare them and causes many of the individuals to suffer from depression. One of the most predominant health problems in the United States is mental health. In the last 20th century, mental illness treatment has been through diverse changes in the United States. These changes have made it necessary for the policy and law makers to enact a law to protect the identity and integrity for people with mental health illness. Most individuals diagnosed with mental health illness are most often being ostracized and stigmatized. Because of social stigma attached to the individual with mental illness, their privacy is being violated and it has created so many issues in mental health.

health, education, nutritional, social, and other services that are determined, based on family needs assessment, to be necessary…(“Head

42 USCS 3002, The Public Health and Welfare, Chapter 35, lists the programs for older Americans. The Aging and Disability Resource Center is a part of the State’s system of long term care.

The United States Department of Health has an overarching goal “to eliminate health disparities.” This term has no absolute definition. It is most often defined as “health differences that occur by gender, race or ethnicity, education or income, disability, living in rural localities, or sexual orientation,” or “population specific difference in the presence of disease, health outcomes, or access to care.” Many factors cause health disparities. Older adults face challenges in one or all of these disparities. Depending on their living conditions and life-time health problems, they may be in double or triple jeopardy, increasing their risk for serious illness and need for eldercare.

The objective of this study is to examine the evolution of programs and services for aging population over the last fifty years. Toward this end, this brief study will conduct a review of literature that addresses these shifts and changes in policy. The timeline of the history of the services and pogroms for the aging population in the United States is shown in the following timeline and an explanation for these develops will next follow the timeline.

The stare of Georgia has Department of Human Resources Through of the state. The DHR has a division specifically dedicated to the health and welfare of Georgia’s aging population. The vision of this organization is “Living Longer, Living Safely, Living Well (DHR)”. The organization also has a mission statement that is primarily focused on meeting the needs of the elderly. “DAS, the Aging Network and other partners assist older individuals, at-risk adults, persons with disabilities, their families and caregivers to achieve safe, healthy, independent and self-reliant lives (DHR).”

The individual that was selected was a single parent female that utilize social service in the areas of Human Services, Redevelopment and Housing (HUD Program), and Virginia Department of Health. The participant’s likes and grievances were aired in the needs assessment, so that programs can be developed that will fill the gap in services that are deficient in meeting her needs. Social services received through human services are Snap benefits, Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families(TANF). Services rendered through Redevelopment and housing consist of Housing Choice Voucher Program (Section 8), Utility Assistance, and Public Housing. Virginia department of health include Women, Infant, and Children (WIC), Child Safety Seat Program, and the STD Clinic.

In the article “Depression Among Institutionalised and Non-institutionalised Elderly Widows and Married Women” the author Deepa M. Rasquinha says “Studies Depression Scale scores were generally good predictor of subsequent scores; however, shortly after bereavement prior scores proved relatively uninformative as most widows experienced a marked increase in depressive symptomatology.” Linking this to the narrator it it’s shown that life has always been the same because once a person is widowed that person begins to get sadder by day. In the poem the speaker starts to fall asleep and starts to hurt himself mentally making him get depressed once he hears a knock on the door. Today for widowed people it’s still the

Mental disorders are becoming more prevalent in today's society as people add stress and pressure to their daily lives. The elderly population is not eliminated as a candidate for a disorder just because they may be retired. In fact, mental disorders affect 1 in 5 elderly people. One would think that with disorders being rather prevalent in this age group that there would be an abundance of treatment programs, but this is not the case. Because the diagnosis of an individual's mental state is subjective in nature, many troubled people go untreated regularly (summer 1998). Depression in the elderly population is a common occurrence, yet the diagnosis and treatment seem to slip