Avoiding Depression in Your Parents and Grandparents and Yourself:

Roizen’s Rules for a Younger YOU®: #6 Manage Stress—You need get rid of loneliness so develop your Posse and Passions

Depression in Older Adults

Aging comes with great benefits like having more free time to dedicate to yourself and your hobbies like knitting, reading, pickleball, or traveling. A lot of changes occur during this time too including some difficult ones like your children leading their own independent lives, becoming a widow or widower, or downsizing into a home that better suits your needs. These stressful adjustments may come with some stressful feelings about things going downhill that may lead into depression.

Depression in the elderly is something that doctors and therapists are finally paying a lot of attention to, because as the number of elderly increase so does the problem. A report from the Administration on Aging (https://acl.gov/sites/default/files/Profile%20of%20OA/2021%20Profile%20of%20OA/2021ProfileOlderAmericans_508.pdf) says that the US will have 80.8 million residents who are 65 and older by 2040, more than double the number in 2000—and it’s estimated that 15% to 20% (https://www.cdc.gov/prc/study-findings/research-briefs/program-helps-elderly.htm) of seniors living independently experience minor depression and up to five percent have significant clinical depression. That jumps to around 13.5% of folks who require home healthcare (assisted living qualifies as that) and to 11.5% of older hospitalized patients (https://www.cdc.gov/aging/depression/index.html).

The results of depression are far reaching: One recent study out of the UConn Center on Aging (https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-023-00033-z) found that there’s biological evidence that depression in older people causes (changes in epigenes leading to) production of blood proteins that promote inflammation or other unhealthy conditions which accelerate biological aging, and lead to poor physical and brain health.

Another study reveals that drug overdose fatalities (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2802946) among older adults have quadrupled in the past two decades. Although the number is still relatively small, that jump is alarming since by 2021, 13% of overdoses were intentional; 83% were unintentional; and more than half of all overdose deaths were from opioids.

YOU steps:  (Action items)

To limit the impacts of depression in older adults there are multiple steps that can be taken.

·      Talk to a therapist.

·      Make sure prescribed antidepressant medication are taken.

·      Exercise is important to serve as a stress reliever and keeps muscles strong (which reduces the risk of falls).

·      Getting a regular 7-9 hours of sleep and

·      maintaining a healthy diet (stay tuned for next week’s article to know what a healthy diet actually is) can help prevent depression too.

·      Develop your posse (make sure you call friends) —takes effort it didn’t take when you had a high school full of potential buddies or even multiple contacts on a job site ---and especially true with work from home—it takes effort

·      Make sure old folks have hobbies and social activities (get the doc to do social prescribing-- is an approach now used at the Cleveland Clinic to connect lonely patients with activities, groups, and services in our communities to meet the practical , social and emotional needs of that person-- to interact and form meaningful connections with others.

·      Also, don’t forget to surround older adults with family and loved ones that can help them. So don’t forget to give your mom or grandma and dad and grandad a tight hug and tell her/him that she/he is loved.