At the age of 76 I suppose I am at the younger side old. I have had chronic low to medium grade depression for years. It went untreated until the late ‘70s. I was diagnosed with ptsd as a result of childhood trauma. The bouts of depression and anxiety are less frequent but often more severe when they do occur. They are almost always attended by a deep feeling of not being valued.
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As you get older and have chronic pain, anticipate worsening health, perhaps even dementia, which, from witnessing my father's experience, can cause great torment, it's no wonder that depression tends to be more severe and unremitting. among older people. Yet, somehow this study was able to factor out the effect of chronic diseases, actual and anticipated, on the study? Really?
People, as they get older, realize that death is not that far of thing it used to be. Some people find that depressing.
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I am over 92 and have a few minor digestive problems occasionally but if I am careful to eat properly they can be dealt with. All but a few of my friends and relatives have died and, frankly, the world in general makes no sense to me. The threats of global warming can be terrible in a few places but the real terrors have yet to arrive when billions will overwhelm the various nations with relatively decent weather conditions trying to flee the massive disasters and the world is making only feeble efforts to react properly. If the maniac military decides to use the nuclear weaponry that might bring a merciful and quick end to much of planetary life I am not particularly fascinated in trying to survive all that. No doubt humans are cleverer than much of other life but seem oblivious to the oncoming total disaster. Death has no fascination for me as I still find just being alive as interesting but I am most grateful that my personal oblivion is not far off as what is coming in the next couple of decades looks rather bad.
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I don’t know what all the mystery is about. Waiting for your death in an increasingly frail body is depressing. Nursing homes are a nightmare that haunts every old person as they watch their abilities inevitably slip away.
I suspect none of these researchers is over the age of 40, so they can’t figure it out.
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In my mid-50s, I can attest to the fact that EVERYTHING gets worse as we age. Why wouldn't depression? How can we NOT get depressed as we see our bodies slowly start to fail?
I wonder if sleep was factored into the study. Older people tend to sleep less, and lack of sleep can definitely affect mood. I'm convinced my father suffered from undiagnosed or (unadmitted) depression, possibly caused by apnea.
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Senile dementia has a blessing: The dying person doesn't really understand he or she is dying. But senile dementia is hell on the children. On the other hand, my wife's mother lived to be 96, and she never suffered from any mental disorder. But lucidly she made life hell for everyone around here...because all she could think about was her death. My sister-in-law's oldest brother was diagnosed with dementia at age 60. He knew he was slipping away; his wife put a GPS on his truck, but encouraged him to live as fully as he could. He drove to a Walmart parking lot and ended his suffering with a single shot to the head. There's no easy way to die...except to die without knowing you're about to die. There never will be an easier way to die.
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You are incorrect, Jay David. My mother has had dementia for three years now and she knows she is failing and that her mind is gone. It is a myth that people with dementia are happy and peaceful. She is terrified and in despair every waking hour. Her heart is strong, so she may last for another five years like this. It is horrible.
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After a lifetime of depressive episodes, it would logically be even worse as you lose hope that you will never have another one.
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With my sample size of 1, my mom, I observed that her recurrent depression did not respond to medication when she was in her sixties, as it did earlier in her life. As a last ditch effort to ameliorate her suffering, we turned to ECT, electro-convulsive therapy. She responded well - and almost immediately. When her depression recurred in her seventies, we immediately turned to ECT, which again provided relief.
The happy news is, her eighties were her happiest decade. No more bouts of debilitating depression. She went out of this life on a high. Yahoo!
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Well, duh. As one approaches old age and the inevitablity of death, it's normal to be feel depressed. Your life *will* end. If you are lucky, like my father and my mother, you will die unexpectedly in your sleep, respectively, at home. It would be nice is more older people had access to "The Trip Treatment", which has been shown to effectively treat end-of-life depression with few side effects: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/trip-treatment In the mean while, what can you do, except try to take some of Tim Minchin's advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoEezZD71sc if you are physically and financially able to do so. Obviously many older people are not only trapped by the thought of death, but they don't have the means to do anything except sit at home and wait for death.
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People want their depression to end; they don’t want their life to end. (It’s when the two become identical that it’s a problem.)
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It makes sense that as the brain shrinks, cognitive function declines, perception weakens, reflexes slow, hormones and neurotransmitters thin out and their receptors become less sensitive, that mood will be adversely affected. In addition, we all accumulate damage from minor strokes, alcohol and drug use, plaques forming in the brain, and trauma from sports injuries and accidents affecting the brain. You mix in a diminishing social network, losses of loved ones, changes in the world to which one can no longer readily adapt, the realization that one has little future, aches, pains and growing disability, and the real question is "Why aren't elderly people more depressed"? The strange thing is most aren't and a larger proportion of elderly people than younger ones report, if not happiness, at least contentment.
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You give me a very good physiological reason for the way I am now feeling… Thank you! And I thought it was just me learning to ignore a little pain and such, whereas I felt I was becoming stronger (in my immune system) and more .... how-you-say-in-America, ‘jaded’? I was told, after a CT scan (10 years ago, after a more recent MVA), I may have suffered a minor stroke: this I attributed to the ancient Motor Vehicle Accident suffered when I was in my late teens, with at the time, the wait-to-awake (from coma) techniques known in 1975. As for the depression, I’ve experimented in - or experienced bouts of it - Just like I’ve experimented in bouts of alcohol abuse, but (thanks to ME, not god) have it licked (quit it)... it was time to get on with life (although I don’t know if my liver agreed with that). Little things like growing old and now being able to grab poison oak branches and pull it out without being adversely affected, Gargling with salt when I feel I slightly scratchy throat instead of succumbing to a full blown major cold
… These are the things that I’m learning to enjoy a nowadays... little things(that used 2 be traumatic)... and Paxil (paroxatene hCl)!
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There is so much we don't fully understand about our bodies, especially as we age. My grandfather was 94 when he died. He was a very content man until he was 93. Maybe someone would say he died of old age but I know he died of a broken heart a year after my grandmother died.
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Loneliness is one major factor of severe depression of older people. It is very important not to forget parents, friends, relatives especially when they live alone or are residing in a skilled nursing facility. Everyone will be old someday and everyone wants to feel special and loved. It is too bad many people do not feel cherished in their old age.
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This study found that the additional severity was not because of social isolation but due to unknown factor.
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It might be worth investigating whether the correlation between "old age" and depression is really a correlation between the decline in physical factors, such as intrinsic factor, folate, and vitamin B12 metabolism, on the one hand, and symptoms of depression or anxiety on the other hand. Other factors, such as polypharmacy interfering with the metabolism of anti-depressants, might also be fruitful.
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