Health Upgraders

Depression in physiology and medicine refers to a lowering, in particular a reduction in a particular biological variable or the function of an organ. It is in contrast to elevation. Clinic’s request for a patient with suspected dementia is usually made because of behavioral symptoms related to delirium. This patient can often have a non diagnosed dementing disorder. Care homes in Wiltshire reported that many times elderly patients don’t have appropriate psychiatric observation, because relatives focus on physical symptoms and their pharmaceutical handling.

Treating depression, prolonged compliance with medication that is ineffective or produces serious side effects and adverse reactions must also be prevented. In other words, what is needed is greater ‘thoughtful’ compliance – a matter of management and, above all, trustful relations between doctor, patient and carer.

Depression in bipolar disorder is a mood disorder characterized by mood swings from mania (exaggerated feeling of well-being, energy, and confidence in which a person can lose touch with reality) to depression. Depression is very characteristic of the fabric of today’s society in which families disperse and are leaving the elderly isolated, especially those who survive the death of their partners. A survey based on data from 55 countries places the bottom of the ‘U-Curve’ of well-being and happiness for all participating countries at age 46.1. As many as 47 of the 55 countries record the peak of misery within the age range 40-55, the exceptions being Brazil, Peru, Puerto Rico and Switzerland where the lowest point is under the age of 40; and France, Israel, Russia and Ukraine where it is above the age of 55.

Depression affects almost half of all people with Parkinson’s disease, says a University of Rochester neurologist. The depression isn’t a dismayed reaction to Parkinson’s disease. Rather, it’s part of the illness. In the elderly, the main areas of medical comorbidity with depression are chronic conditions that are largely the result of ageing: stroke, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, diabetes, cancer and dementia are singled out as risk factors for elderly depression by WebMD. Elderly depression can be described as medically ‘interactive’: if I have been ill for some time, my illness can be the cause of my depression”; that’s logical. It applies also in reverse: I am clinically depressed, then I may become more vulnerable to other diseases of ageing. Co-morbidity with depression is a profound and growing problem in old age.