Causes and Symptoms for Elderly Depression

There are four major categories that these causes and symptoms can fall into for the elderly: physical factors that contribute to depression, psychological factors that can increase the risk for depression, personality factors that can lead to depression and finally certain medications can trigger elderly depression.

There are many reasons that we feel depressed as we age. The older we get the more events we experience that can be devastating such as natural disasters, chronic illness, job loss, financial instability and loss of loved ones to death. The elderly are also living in a increasingly youth-oriented society where they may feel out of place or undervalued by other members of the groups they associate with. Life changes also have a way of causing one to feel lonely or sad such as multiple moves, changes in career, or relationships and we naturally accumulate these as we age. There are four major categories that these causes and symptoms can fall into for the elderly: physical factors that contribute to depression, psychological factors that can increase the risk for depression, personality factors that can lead to depression and finally certain medications can trigger elderly depression.

The physical factors that can lead to depression in the elderly are:

Heredity can pre-dispose a person to depression

Those who are in constant physical pain from illness or injury can also have an increased risk for depression

Chronic diseases such as cancer can trigger depression

Psychological factors that can contribute to the occurrence of depression in the elderly are:

Those who have gone through the loss of loved ones in the same age bracket, to death and are can have a fear of dying themselves that can manifest in depression

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The elderly face major life changes such as sons and daughters leaving home, retirement, moving from a larger home into a smaller one or to a retirement community or nursing home.

The elderly can also encounter feelings of guilt over not having accomplished goals that were previously set for them or by them.

Personality factors that can contribute to depression in the elderly individual:

Certain elderly individuals have more a difficult time becoming dependent after losing a spouse when their personality was one of being more dependent than independent.

The elderly can also easily lose self-confidence or self-esteem when everything around them seems to change especially with new technology.

Certain medications can also trigger depression in the elderly:

Elderly people are especially at risk for depression when taking the following medications:

Zovirax, a drug used in elderly to treat both herpes and shingles.

Alcohol when consumed by the elderly individual can also increase the risk for depression.

Anticonvulsants such as Celontin and Zarontin that are used to control epileptic seizures can also lead to symptoms of depression.

Certain central nervous system depressants that are use dto treat insomnia or anxiety or are used as a muscle relaxer can also cause depression such as Benzodiazepine, Ativan, Dalman, Halcion, Klonopin, Librium, Valium and Xanax.

Another group of central nervous system depressants an actually slow down brain function, called barbiturates such as phenobarbital and secobarbital can lead to depression symptoms.

Parlodel a medicine used to treat Parkinson's disease has also been shown to increase the chance for depression in elderly.

Other medications that may also increase the risk for depression in the elderly individual are estrogens such as premarin and prempro or fluoroquinolone antibiotics such as Cipro and Floxin and narcotics used to treat pain.

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