Depression Symptoms Can Last for Weeks, Months, or Years
Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder in which feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and perceptions are altered in the context of episodes of mania and depression. Previously known as manic depression, bipolar disorder was once thought to occur rarely in youth. The choice of treatment will depend on whether the patient initially presents with mild, moderate or severe depression. Psychosocial therapy can be particularly useful in relieving elderly depression that is related to loss and bereavement. Electroconvulsive therapy may be recommended when neither medication nor psychotherapy have been successful, and particularly in cases of psychotic depression.
Depression is a complex matter. In recent years, with burgeoning research progress, we are finding out that depression is much more common than many of us thought. At least 15% (and likely more) of women take an antidepressant during their lifetime.
People with a depressive illness cannot merely “pull themselves together” and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Physicians need to bear in mind that there is not one depressive illness but many. “In the extreme, one could assert that each depressive illness is unique and individual. Elderly persons should not be exempt from that rule”.
In our ageing society, where longer life is not necessarily the same as longer healthy life, the problem of elderly depression can reach farther than the undoubted emotional suffering of elderly individuals.
Depression can be devastating to all areas of a person’s everyday life, including family relationships, friendships, and the ability to work or go to school. Many people still believe that the emotional symptoms caused by depression are “not real”. Care homes in Kent noticed that in our rapidly ageing society, it is high time for the complexities of elderly depression to be added to the roster of disease management. There is no practical evidence that such management can be applied to depression, for example in the form of ‘collaborative care’ as well as by way of a more integrated approach to the combination of medication with psychotherapy which can be particularly effective with elderly patients.
Although some people experience only one episode of depression, most have repeated episodes of depression symptoms throughout their life.
