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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Late life depression
— a naturalistic study of inpatient treatment | | Author(s) | Karen Blank, Denise Fogel, Julie Robison |
| Journal title | Journal of Mental Health and Aging, vol 6 no 3, Fall 2000 |
| Pages | pp 249-260 |
| Keywords | Depression ; Late ; Drugs ; In-patients ; Psychogeriatric units ; Clinical surveys ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | The clinical and demographic characteristics, treatment features, and short-term response of 135 depressed older patients (aged 51-94) hospitalised on an American geropsychiatry unit were examined retrospectively over one year. Diagnoses included 112 with major depression, and 23 with bipolar disorder. Half had a late onset depression (after age 60) or had high rates of psychotic features. Patients averaged 3.3 medical comorbidities. There was a high incidence of suicidal ideation (40.7%), with 12.6% making a recent attempt. Data on psychopharmacological treatments, including new generation agents and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), were gathered. Despite severe psychiatric illness, advanced age, and medical comorbidity, inpatient treatment of depression was effective for this patient population. At discharge, 79.3% were much or moderately improved. Significant predictors of better treatment response include ECT, bipolar diagnosis, presence of psychotic symptoms, absence of substance abuse history, and less medical comorbidity. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-010131207 A |
| Classmark | ENR: 4L: LLD: LF7: LDM: 3G: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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