What triggers geriatric depression?

Many have died due to depression. Surprisingly, a big fraction of this suicide cases is due to geriatric depression. For this reason, experts have started advocating the mental and emotional health of the elderly to decrease the number of suicidal cases among the senior citizens.

Geriatric depression is both a mental and emotional disorder which affects people of advanced age. In layman’s term, it is the type of depression used to characterize depression among the elderly. When our older loved ones experience this type of depression, they often feel overly sad and devoid of joy.

Research has shown that females who are single, unmarried, divorced, and widowed are at higher risk for depression. Other than these risk factors, Sunshine Home Health Aide Org., Inc. has found that the following causes also add to the reason why our elderly loved ones feel extraordinarily lonely.

• Loss of friends or loved ones

  Each time we lose a friend or family member, this loss creates a big impact in our lives. Some just easily move on but others feel worse and find it too challenging to go on with their lives. When the bereavement goes on for a longer period, it eventually turns into depression which needs to be cured by professionals.

• Disease diagnosis

  How will you feel when you suddenly find out that you are sick and such disease will already haunt you during your whole lifetime? It might feel like you’ve been hit by a bomb. The bomb would even feel worse when such disease is serious. When we let this problem get into us, such thought will always haunt us and we start feeling depressed.

• Isolation

  It would be hard to halt your social life abruptly. This usually happens when we reach the age of seniority. We begin to feel unusual changes in our bodies which stop us from being as active in our social lives as when we were younger. Without seeing anyone in a day for a few days or not being able to talk with someone for days, a person might feel so sad up to the point when one could do nothing but succumb to depression.

• Taking Medications

  Though admittedly, we need medicines to make us feel better from sickness, there are certain medications which cause depression like those used to treat Parkinson’s disease, high blood pressure, and cholesterol. If we are prescribed to take these types of medication, we should ask our physician some ways to counter depression, just in case.

A lot of senior citizens whom Home Care Company in La Mesa California care for, experience depression. Although not all cases are too serious which would amount to suicidal attempts, we always do our best to be of help not just to their physical needs but also to uplift their feelings.