Clinical depression or as it is sometimes referred to as, "major depression", is a biologically based brain disorder. This type of depression can affect behavior, feelings, thoughts, and the physical thoughts of the individual suffering from it. The older individual who is suffering from clinical depression will complain about feeling lousy or unwell and others including the doctor caring for them may dismiss the feelings as normal aches and pains of advanced age. It may be misdiagnosed, overlooked or just plain ignored even by well-meaning caregivers. This is a serious disease that has affected 11.6 Americans yearly including those considered to be elderly.
Individuals who are depressed have poor appetite, lack energy, will either sleep poorly or sleep too much and be unable to concentrate adequately to function while doing daily tasks.
Once diagnosed with depression, there is hope for the elderly that they can again return to a normal life. Treatments are very effective if treatment is initiated. The problem is that less than 1/3 of the elderly individuals who have depression symptoms ever seek treatment.
Depression has many forms and no matter why or the cause of depression it is still something that majorly affects your life. The elderly (65 years or older) face many obstacles in life, an illness like depression can seriously undermine any effort to function as in being dependent and even disabled to the point of bringing about hardship for themselves and any family members.
What makes depression in the elderly different?
You would think depression is depression no matter the individual's age, right? Wrong. The very basic difference between a younger individual going through clinical depression and someone over age 65 is that an elderly person is much more likely to have disease issues (usually multiple) that will have an impact on their ability to recover from the physical side-effects of depression. The physical side-effects of depression are by-products of not being able to function due to the depression. As an example:
A depressed individual will either have a great deal of difficulty sleeping or will sleep too much. If the individual is not getting enough sleep than the body will not be in optimal shape to fight off infection, to repair itself from cell damage, or to have an alert mind for making critical decisions regarding healthcare. An individual who sleeps too much will miss medication doses, missed doctor appointments etc., you get the picture.
Depression also leads to an increased risk for cardiac diseases that risk already increases just with the advanced age of an individual; so depression speeds up this process.
Depression studies have shown that the combination of serious illness or chronic illness and depression increases the risk for death from these illnesses; even if the depression is mild.
The depressed elderly individual is also at an increased risk for suicide because the duration of depression tends to last longer in the older individual and has such a devastating effect on health issues; suicide is a very appealing alternative to someone facing the combination described above.
Support:
It is critical that anyone suffering from depression become surrounded by caring and supportive individuals and organizations; it is critical to the survival of the elderly depressed person that treatment and support be initiated as soon as the diagnosis is made. Healthcare workers are becoming increasingly aware of the many risks faced by the depressed elderly in their care thanks to research and study documentation. Recognizing the signs of depression in the elderly is now the main concern of those who are involved in eldercare. Doctors and other non-psychological professionals need to understand that depression is not normal in the elderly. Depression is serious and must be on the mind of any doctor who is seeing elderly patients in their practice.
