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Depression in Older Adults: Pervasive or Preventable?

✍ Scribed by Beverly Huffstetler

Publisher
American Counseling Association
Year
2001
Tongue
English
Weight
579 KB
Volume
3
Category
Article
ISSN
1524-6817

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis

Depression occurs in as much as 15% of older adults, but it is often undiagnosed and untreated. This article explores topics related to depression in older adults including etiology, diagnosis, screening and treatment options, treatment outcomes, interventions, implicationsfor counselors, and areas for firther research.

Depression, often called "the common cold of mental illness" (Castleman, n.d.), affects 18.8 million Americans, or 9.5% of the population in any given year ("Depression," n.d.). Among older adults, depression is an even larger concern. A recent report from the National Institute of Mental Health called depression in the older adult population "widespread . . . a serious public health concern" (Castleman, n.d., "Aging"). Depression is the most common mental illness among persons over the age of 60. Approximately 15% of older adults suffer from significant depression at any given time (Sable, Dunn, & Zisook, 2002). Despite its prevalence, depression is not an inevitable part of the aging process. In this article, I refute the myth that older adults are inevitably depressed, by examining etiology, diagnosis, screening and treatment options, treatment outcomes, need for further research, and implications for counselors.

CAUSES OF DEPRESSION

Although the American Psychiatric Association's (2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition, text revision) suggests that symptoms of a major depressive episode may develop over a period of days to weeks, the development period for depression in older adults may be much longer, even years. In a study, Berger, Small, Forsell, Winblad, and Blackman (1998) found that people over the age of 75 who demonstrate depressive symptoms, such as appetite disturbance, psychomotor distur-

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