Relationship Between Depression And Frailty Syndrome

Temporary sadness, grief, or blue moods is considered as normal. However, when these blue moods exist persistently for two or more weeks, it is classified as the depression. Therefore, assessing an older adult’s depression is a way to know their functional status. Geriatric Depression Scales originally had 30 questions and was a self-report assessment tool. It was then reduced to 15 questions due to the validity of these 15 questions. (Mitchell, Bird, Rizzo, & Meader, 2010). As aforementioned, the questions in the GDS were designed based on the signs and symptoms of depression. Iliades (2011) stated that depressed patients would have problems with motivation, fatigue, sleep patterns, suicidality or hopelessness. In GDS, the questions such as “do you feel full of energy” and “do you prefer to stay at home, rather than going out and doing new things?” are to assess the older adults motivation or fatigue. Moreover, the questions such as “do you feel pretty worthless the way you are now?”, “do you feel that your situation is hopeless?” or “Are you hopeful about the future?” are to assess the older adults’

Frailty is a common clinical syndrome in older persons that carries an increased risk of poor health outcomes. Frailty has been described as “a physiologic state of increased vulnerability to stressors that decrease physiologic reservoirs, resulting from aging and decrease function of multiple physiologic organs (1). The overall prevalence of frailty in USA community dwelling aged 65 or older in the United States ranges 7-12%. The prevalence of frailty increased with age from 3.9% in the 65-74 age group to 25% in the 85+group, and was greater in women than men (8% vs. 5%) (2).

Purpose and Question: Due to having an inefficiency standardized definition of frailty in older adults and it’s various clinical presentation which related to adverse health outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the core clinical presentations of frailty which can diagnose frailty syndrome and identify high risk of adverse health outcomes in frail older adults. In addition, the authors hypothesize that these core clinical presentations would be more valid to

Frailty is a condition associated with age-related declines, and it has been recognized for many decades. According to an important challenge for aging populations, the term of frailty is widely used in the field of geriatrics and gerontology. It becomes one of the geriatric syndromes, which increases adverse health outcomes. As a concept, it is full of 'known unknowns' such as which mechanisms lead to frailty and how it is best managed or prevent it. In order to examine these circumstances, the current knowledge of understanding frailty characteristics and managing frailty in tangible ways requires an appropriate framing of the problem (Pel-Littel, Schuurmans, Emmelot-Vonk, & Verhaar, 2009).

Participants will be recruited through convenience sampling by using flyers and recommendations from program coordinators in hospices within the state of New York. Subjects identified by the program coordinators will be approached by the researchers and will be given oral and written information regarding the trial. The sample will include a maximum of 100 participants, different race, gender, or religion are included. As required by the inclusion criteria of the study, older adults aged 55 or over must be diagnosed by the DSM-IV and have met the criteria for moderate to severe depression. In addition to the DSM-IV, the severity of their depression will also be measured using standardized depression inventories, like the Beck’s Depression Inventory

Frailty is a clinical symptom associated with age-related declines, and it has been recognized as a geriatric syndrome for many decades. According to a major challenge for aging population, the term “frailty” is widely used in the field of geriatrics and gerontology. It is known that frailty has been closely related to older adults who have complex health issues, which raises vulnerabilities and adverse health outcomes (Fried et al., 2001; Pel-Littel, Schuurmans, Emmelot-Vonk, & Verhaar, 2009). The outcomes of frailty are usually known as disability, functional impairment, incidence of hospitalization, and death. However, a concept of frailty is full of “known unknowns” such as which mechanism leads to frailty and how it is best managed and

A five-item Geriatric Depression Scale has been found to be effective in assessment of older patients with a sensitivity of 97% and specificity of 85% (Maurer & Darnall, 2012).

In the gerontology and geriatric fields, the concept of “Frailty” has widely accepted as a condition with age-related declines for many decades. Moreover, frailty has been mentioned as the other comorbidities of the older population. Many researchers have attempted to define the term frailty as synonymous with advanced age, comorbidity, or disability. The consequences of frailty are not only increasing the risk of adverse health outcomes, but raising the rate of institutionalization, morbidity, and mortality in older adults. However, frailty is even more difficult to identify. Recent evidence shows that frailty is associated with age, but not all older people are frail at the same rate. The individual factors—biological, physiological, and

Using the Geriatric Depression Scale will allow the therapist to identify depression in the client. From being independent to limited in occupation can result in depression in injured individual. Furthermore, being the absence of psychological happiness can hinder optimal happiness of individuals and the effectiveness of therapy sessions, therefore it is necessary to assess depression level in post injured population during recovery rehabilitation.

Decline in physical and cognitive function is usually associated with a part of aging (Schönknecht, Pantel, Kruse, & Schröder, 2014). Functional decline is considered to be a hallmark of aging process and it is commonly accepted as a normal part of senescent changes by individuals, families, and health care providers (López-Otín, Blasco, Partridge, Serrano, & Kroemer, 2013). The decline in functional status is generally attributed to be the result of acute or chronic medical conditions (Druss et al., 2014) however; too often, functional decline in elderly is the consequence of lack of physical and cognitive activities and type of care they receive and do not receive on a regular basis (Shearer & Guthrie, 2013). This paper provides the background and significance of functional

All studies claimed that it was no consensus for defining frailty; the operational description of frailty of those studies was defined based on frailty measure tool’s definition. We identified that there were many ways to measure frailty such as “rules-based” instruments, summarization of deficit lists derived from clinical judgment, and matching multidimensional clinical deficits with national complication databases.

Several reports support the notion that depression may cause bone deterioration and consequently increase the risk of osteoporotic fractures in adults, including three meta-analyses, which provides evidence of an association between depression and low BMD (10-20). Even after adjustment for known risk factors for osteoporosis, BMD remains negatively associated with the presence of depressive symptoms in older subjects (21). There is further some evidence suggesting that decreased BMD occurs at the beginning of depression, and not just as a final consequence (22). A recent meta-analysis on the topic specified that depressed individuals display lower BMD at the spine, hip and forearm, with a stronger association observed for pre-menopausal than for post-menopausal women, probably due to the fact that post-menopausal women present other risk factors for osteoporosis, such as lower estrogen levels and physical inactivity, thus hampering the association (17). The same results were replicated in a meta-analysis conducted by Wu et al., which showed decreased BMD at the spine and hip for subjects with depression when compared to

Mental illnesses are increasing at an alarming rate worldwide and is one of the significant health problems of today’s world.This essay will present the manifestation of ‘depression in an elderly client in a community mental health setting. Depression among the elderly differs from depression in the younger adults which are accompanied by physical symptoms and co-morbidities rather than emotional symptoms. The presentation of these somatic conditions make the diagnosis of depression difficult in older people and therefore requires the identification of differences in symptoms of depression and coexisting somatic conditions. Depression is associated with significant reduction in cognitive abilities of the elderly. Furthermore decreased in

Research indicates that depression can be associated with both cognitive impairment and dementia, and that depression increases the risk of developing dementia (Steffens et al, 2006). It is not always easy to diagnose depression in a person with Alzheimer’s disease, as Alzheimer’s itself may mimic the signs of depression. Although depression may be a risk factor for dementia, its presence is also an early presenting symptom, rather than its cause (WHO Library Cataloguing, 2006). There is a greater prevalence of depression with people who have vascular and mixed types of dementia as opposed to the Alzheimer’s type. (Newman, S.C, 1999, & Muliyala, K.P & Varghese, M. (2010).

Elderly with dementia are extremely predisposed to emotional unhappiness; furthermore, they can display serious abnormal conduct anxiety, depression with any adjustment to their lives (Im & Lee, 2014). Lee Jung-ae and Chung Hyang-kyun (1993) reported that twenty-four percent of the older adults with cognitive illnesses have depression, signifying a link between cognitive disablity and depression in the elderly (Im & Lee, 2014).