Amongst elderly white males, the suicide rate is six times the national average. And as the baby boomer generation starts trading in their Walkmans for walkers, the overall statistics will go through the roof. Depression frequently co-occurs with these and other disorders, blending into the landscape of the victim's usual aches and pains, and tending to become difficult to spot. The problem is compounded by the older patient, conditioned by the social taboos of an earlier era. The sad part is none of this ever has to happen, for elderly people have the same response to antidepressants and other therapies as the rest of the population, about 85 percent.
Older people are as responsive to treatment as the young.
Have your doctor administer a routine depression screening test. The Hamilton Depression Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Geriatric Depression Scale . If your doctor is not competent enough to administer this test, then seek out one who is. Insist on a similar test if taken to the hospital. A recent Case Western Reserve University survey found that 30 percent of elderly patients who presented themselves to the hospital emergency room met the researchers' criteria for depression, but only 27 percent of these were recognized by the emergency room physicians and only 13 percent were referred for further evaluation.