Unfortunately, that's like treating pneumonia with aspirin instead of an antibiotic. Once that happens, you can't just snap out of it. Medication is needed to regain the serotonin balance, much the same way you would take insulin for diabetes. If depression is not recognized and treated, Dr. McDonald emphasizes, it can have far reaching health consequences. The longer you stay depressed, the more you withdraw, the less well you eat.
Untreated depression can also exacerbate physical disabilities.
Depression plus any medical problem will make the medical problem much worse. Untreated depression also raises the risk of suicide, Dr. McDonald adds. Often, it is the adult children of older people who must convince their parents to seek evaluation for depression. Geriatricians understand how to sort out what's going on, including reviewing medications an older person may be taking that actually cause depression and testing for other diseases that develop in the elderly that may overlap with symptoms of depression. There are a lot of people out there with treatable depression that has been ascribed to dementia.