Older adults more likely to stay depressed

 Earlier this month, University of Washington psychiatrist Stephen Thielke, MD presented his findings at the American Geriatrics Society Annual Scientific Meeting: older adults who are depressed are more likely to stay depressed as they age, especially those who rate themselves as sick. 

"The take-home message is: depression is not going to resolve on its own, especially among sick patients," said Dr. Thielke, the lead author of this retrospective study involving nearly 5900 Medicare recipients, in an interview with Medscape Internal Medicine.

The study found that more than 70% of sick older individuals who were initially depressed still had symptoms of depression when they were evaluated 1 year later. And among healthy subjects, more than 50% with depressive symptoms were still depressed a year later.

While the investigators did not study why depression was unlikely to get better in older adults, Dr. Thielke hypothesized that one reason, besides poor health, could be an inadequate social network.

Other studies have confirmed that older people are also more likely than younger individuals to suffer from recurrent depression. But depression is not a normal part of aging—it can and should be treated. And with good, thorough treatment (which may or may not include antidepressant medication), full recovery is possible at any age.

Naturopathic approaches to depression include the optimization of basic factors needed for general health such as sleep, diet and exercise. Working on these factors alone can sometimes be all that is needed. Naturopaths often combine this with other therapies such as talk therapy, individualized lifestyle changes and specific nutritive and botanical medicines. Naturopathic approaches may also be used in conjunction with conventional antidepressant medications.