Study: Depression can be treated in seniors
Successful treatment of depression in frail older people may help slow their physical decline, which could help keep them living independently as long as possible, a new study says. The findings suggest that doctors more aggressively identify and treat seniors with depression, an illness that puts people, especially the elderly, at risk of suicide. Many doctors mistakenly believe that treatment doesn’t help older people suffering from depression.
Not so, says Christopher Callahan, a geriatric researcher at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. Depression can be harder to treat in seniors, but this study and others suggest that treatment does work for many people. And when the fog of depression lifts, they find they’re better able to perform routine but crucial tasks.
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3 Comments to
“Study: Depression can be treated in seniors”
Dr. John,
I am a firm beleiver that anyone with the proper treatment, Dr.,
and support system and retraining your brain. Everyone can see postive results and become better than they were before they were being treated1
With Much Love,
Arthur
http://www.out-of-darkness.com (almost Done)
Doc John, this subject is extremely close to my heart. I took care of a 79 year old woman who had lost her husband a year earlier. She was on Zoloft. Her depression was awful. I asked her primary care physician if he would change the med and try something else. He refused. (She had been on it 6 months)As it was very expensive for her, it would have helped to use something that had a generic source also. Her daughters both asked him to change from Zoloft..he refused. I took her in for the flu and asked him again to try something, anything else. He mouthed to me,”no use in that, she’s dying anyway”…..I asked him to repeat it and he said it out loud. Billie was hard of hearing and didn’t hear him. I checked with several other caregivers and they had experienced similiar answers from their patient’s primary care physician. Incidentally, I changed physicians and she was put on generic Prozac and in about 3 weeks, it kicked it and she was like a different woman!! Thanks for the info..Pat
I am having a great deal of diffculty with my 79 year old father he was hospitalized for depression
amonth ago when he was released he was doing musch better. But now he has become very depressed again. He has been on three different medications, paxiol cymbalta and now lexapro, is their any help for him? He also takes concerta54.
sue
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 28 Mar 2005
