{"id":214,"date":"2014-11-05T19:50:59","date_gmt":"2014-11-05T19:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/?p=214"},"modified":"2015-11-30T19:41:12","modified_gmt":"2015-11-30T19:41:12","slug":"old-and-depressed-the-not-so-golden-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/11\/old-and-depressed-the-not-so-golden-years.html","title":{"rendered":"Old and Depressed: The Not So Golden Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"depressionold1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Research shows that elderly depression is a common, widespread problem. Adults over age 60 are five times more likely to be depressed or suicidal than younger people. Men are more likely to commit suicide than women. Depression isn\u2019t a normal part of getting old. Symptoms can be confused with what is part of the normal aging process and so aren’t recognized or are ignored. Learning the common causes of elderly depression can help you and someone you love.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s 5 common things related to elderly depression:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Health problems. They\u2019re different than when you were young and there\u2019s more of them. Rheumatism. Arthritis. Diabetes. Heart disease. Cancer. Dementia and Alzheimer\u2019s disease. The older you get, the greater your risk of having one of these. Feelings are often ignored because controlling physical pain is the patient\u2019s main focus. Usually there\u2019s more than just one health issue, so feelings associated with depression can be mistaken as symptoms of something else. Disease can mask depression.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Medications can cause depression. Depression is the most common side effect of medications and it\u2019s one that you often hear about in commercials. \u201cIf you notice any signs or symptoms of depression while taking this medication, be sure to contact your doctor.\u201d Good advice. Drugs don\u2019t work the same for everyone. Drugs can also interact with each other in bad ways, causing depression. It\u2019s a good idea to keep a list of all your medications handy for your doctor and loved ones.<\/li>\n
  3. Grief over the loss of a spouse or loved one. This is the biggest contributor to suicide among men. Loosing a spouse leaves the surviving partner feeling empty and alone. Some will feel abandoned because their adult children have their own lives to worry about. When a couple gets separated by death, the survivor often holds off from dating. The chances of reconnecting with another person the same age with similar interests is fairly low. This leads to isolation and feeling like you\u2019re just drifting through the day.<\/li>\n
  4. Loss of independence. Imagine not being able to do what you want to when you want to! The physical loss of mobility is a big life changer. Being forced to increasingly rely on others to do daily tasks also makes you feel useless and not in control. Big life changes like moving into a nursing home definitely can leave you feeling like you have no control over your life. This event causes stress, heartache, and even heartbreak.<\/li>\n
  5. Reduced sense of purpose. Having a purpose means different things to people. Institutions often reduce a person\u2019s sense of purpose. Even if you\u2019re living independently, you can feel useless. My uncle felt his daily purpose was reduced to walking to the store for cigarettes and gossiping with friends. He started to feel his life meant something again when he became a babysitter for a friend\u2019s granddaughter. His daily purpose made him look forward to getting up each day.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"depressionold\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    TAGS: elderly depression, mental health, geriatric health<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Research shows that elderly depression is a common, widespread problem. Adults over age 60 are five times more likely to be depressed or suicidal than younger people. Men are more likely to commit suicide than women. Depression isn\u2019t a normal part of getting old. Symptoms can be confused with what is part of the normal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,172],"tags":[58,2,12,175,6],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-depression-help-2","category-elderly-depression","tag-aging","tag-depression","tag-emotional-health","tag-suicide-prevention","tag-terezia-farkas"],"yoast_head":"\nOld and Depressed: The Not So Golden Years - Depression Help<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Old and Depressed: The Not So Golden Years - Depression Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Research shows that elderly depression is a common, widespread problem. Adults over age 60 are five times more likely to be depressed or suicidal than younger people. Men are more likely to commit suicide than women. Depression isn\u2019t a normal part of getting old. Symptoms can be confused with what is part of the normal…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Depression Help\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-11-05T19:50:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-11-30T19:41:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/11\/depressionold1.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Terezia Farkas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@tereziafarkas\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Old and Depressed: The Not So Golden Years - Depression Help","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Old and Depressed: The Not So Golden Years - Depression Help","og_description":"Research shows that elderly depression is a common, widespread problem. Adults over age 60 are five times more likely to be depressed or suicidal than younger people. Men are more likely to commit suicide than women. Depression isn\u2019t a normal part of getting old. Symptoms can be confused with what is part of the normal…","og_url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx","og_site_name":"Depression Help","article_author":"http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB","article_published_time":"2014-11-05T19:50:59+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-11-30T19:41:12+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/11\/depressionold1.jpeg"}],"author":"Terezia Farkas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@tereziafarkas","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/2014\/11\/old-and-depressed-the-not-so-golden-years.html","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx","name":"Old and Depressed: The Not So Golden Years - Depression Help","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/11\/depressionold1.jpeg","datePublished":"2014-11-05T19:50:59+00:00","dateModified":"2015-11-30T19:41:12+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c2df0b7a25217ed4853f2aec0340c9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/11\/depressionold1.jpeg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/files\/2014\/11\/depressionold1.jpeg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/Health\/galleries\/Old-and-Depressed-The-Not-So-Golden-Years.aspx#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Old and Depressed: The Not So Golden Years"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/","name":"Depression Help","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Terezia Farkas","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/#\/schema\/person\/d6c2df0b7a25217ed4853f2aec0340c9","name":"Terezia Farkas","description":"Terezia Farkas is an international bestselling author in depression and grief. Terezia is a reiki master, psychic medium, and certified channeller. Visit Terezia Farkas on Twitter @tereziafarkas Website: http:\/\/www.tereziafarkas.com Honours: Alberta Lt. Governor Circle on Mental Health and Addictions award. Bell Let's Talk Social Media Ambassador 2017. CAMH (Canadian Addictions and Mental Health) 150 Difference Makers nominee. 2014 Global Crisis of Depression Summit at Kings Place in London on November 25, 2014, which included speakers Kofi A Anan, the 7th former Secretary General of the UN.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.tereziafarkas.com","http:\/\/on.fb.me\/1zSE4WB","https:\/\/x.com\/tereziafarkas"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/author\/tfarkas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/depressionhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}