Depression and suicide in older people: Report of a workshop held at the ciba foundation, London, on November 11, 1994
✍ Scribed by Dr. Melanie Abas
- Book ID
- 102227373
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1995
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 331 KB
- Volume
- 10
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0885-6230
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Once a year, the British charity Research into Ageing, 'founded to improve the life of older people through the initiation, funding and dissemination of research', holds a workshop on an area of interest. Last year, the topic of depression and suicide was chosen and 22 participants were invited to read, listen to and discuss seven 'position' papers.
Professor Dan Blazer presented reasons why some studies have found the prevalence of major depression among older adults to be lower than for other age groups. Some methods (a) discount depressive symptoms that fail to meet syndrome criteria derived from work with younger adults or that subjects attribute to physical illness, (b) miss depressed people admitted to hospital or to residential homes, and (c) employ styles of questioning not specifically designed for use in older people. Lowered survival due to suicide and physical illness may also contribute to apparent low prevalence, as can effects relevant to the unique historical experiences of different birth cohortssince 1988, suicide rates have increased by 25% in Americans now over 65 years of age. A recent study (Blazer et al., 1991) has shown an association between depressive symptoms and increased age to be reversed when factors such as low income, physical disability, cognitive impairment and poor social support are simultaneously controlled. It was agreed that the use of diagnostic systems developed for younger people, and the emphasis on studying categories rather than symptoms, has led to the neglect of some elderly people with