Study: Elderly choosing suicide over antidepressants
Monday, April 27th, 2009
Too many of our nation’s elderly are committing suicide rather than treating their depression with medication, according to a study in the March 2009 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
A review of postmortem toxicology of 162 suicide victims 65 and older showed that fewer than 25 percent of the victims had antidepressants, such as Lexapro and Wellbutrin, in their systems at the time of death. Among those 85 and older, fewer than 17 percent were using antidepressants.
Dr. Robert C. Abrams, from Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, concludes in the report:
Assuming that many of the suicide victims had clinically treatable depression, these findings implicate problems in the delivery of specific antidepressant pharmacologic treatment…
Studies suggest that up to 15 percent of the elderly population of the United States suffers from depression. Elderly people comprise 13 percent of the population but account for 18 percent of suicides.
Beyond the psychological and physical impact of aging, other factors that contribute to depression among the elderly are drug interactions and side effects. Several drugs administered for chronic conditions can cause depression. Among these are pain relievers for arthritis, cholesterol drugs, blood pressure medications, and bronchodilators used for asthma.
Antidepressants can help ease the symptoms of depression in the elderly. However, any medical problems complicating the depression must be resolved also. If a senior suffers from chronic pain, for example, this can interfere with recovery, so it must be managed along with the depression itself.
