Problem:
Discuss the variations in symptoms of depression in an older adult vs a younger adult and include some of the reasons that may make older adults vulnerable to depression. Need Assignment Help?
Younger adults are generally more likely to recognize and verbalize emotional distress and seek help for mood symptoms. Also, they often present with emotional and psychological symptoms such as persistent sadness, hopelessness, or tearfulness, loss of interest in activities, feelings of worthlessness or guilt, changes in appetite or weight, irritability, anger, and can lead to suicidal ideation.
Older adults are often under-diagnosed because symptoms can look different and overlap with aging or if patients has chronic illness. Symptoms presented in older adults include fatigue, pain, GI issues rather than sadness, psychomotor slowing, cognitive changes, apathy, loss of motivation, sleep disturbances, and higher suicide completion rates. Older adults are more vulnerable to depression because they have multiple biological, psychological, and social risk factors such as chronic medical conditions, chronic pain, polypharmacy, social isolation, loneliness, functional decline, cognitive impairment, and financial stress. There is also a big stigma surrounding mental health in older generations, and all these factors can accumulate and increase risk of depression.
What are the most reliable tools for identifying depression in cognitively intact and cognitively impaired older adults?
Tools that are more reliable for identifying depression in older adults include geriatric depression scale which focuses on somatic symptoms; it comes in yes and no format and easy to take for older adults. PHQ9 is widely used across age groups and can be used if cognition is intact; this questionnaire includes assessment of suicidal ideation. For patients who have cognitive impairment, observational tools are preferred. Cornell scale is used for depression in dementia which includes caregiver observation, patient interview, assessing mood, behavior, and circadian rhythms. Neuropsychiatric inventory, which assesses behavioral symptoms, is use in long term care and research settings.
Based on the answer of the student based on the questions given, using the simoplest sentence structure that a high school student can easily understand in a paragraph form with 100 words, give a comment/reaction based on her answer. Make anice comment on the first sentence.