Older Adults: Depression And Suicide Facts ?
Q: Major depression, a significant predictor of suicide in older adults,1 is a
widely underrecognized and undertreated medical illness. In fact, several
studies have found that many older adults who commit suicide have visited a
primary care physician very close to the time of the suicide:
A:Older Americans are disproportionately likely to commit suicide. Comprising
only 13 percent of the U.S. population, individuals ages 65 and older
accounted for 19 percent of all suicide deaths in 1997. The highest rate is
for white men ages 85 and older: 64.9 deaths per 100,000 persons in 1997,
about 6 times the national U.S. rate of 10.6 per 100,000.3
Depression often co-occurs with other medical illnesses such as
cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.6 Because many older adults face such
physical illnesses as well as various social and economic difficulties,
individual health care professionals often mistakenly conclude that
depression is a normal consequence of these problems—an attitude often shared by
patients themselves.7 These factors conspire to make the illness underdiagnosed and
undertreated.
Both doctors and patients may have difficulty identifying the signs of
depression. NIMH-funded researchers are currently investigating the
effectiveness of a depression education intervention delivered in