Open AccessElderly Mental Health: Needs
Author(s) -
Shubhangi R Parkar
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
mens sana monographs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 0973-1229
pISSN - 1998-4014
DOI - 10.4103/0973-1229.153311
Subject(s) - anxiety , depression (economics) , mental health , dementia , institutionalisation , psychiatry , quality of life (healthcare) , medicine , geriatric psychiatry , population , gerontology , psychology , nursing , environmental health , disease , pathology , economics , macroeconomics
This paper highlights the mental health needs of the elderly. It tackles the issues of their institutionalisation and community care. Rapid urbanisation in Indian society throws up special problems in elderly care. There is great evidence of a raise in morbidity, mortality, hospitalisation and loss of functional status related to common mental disorders in the elderly patients. Overlap of depression and anxiety is very common with up to almost half of the elderly patients reporting significant depressive and anxiety symptoms. Also, depression is the most common psychiatric disorder in late life. Growth in the elderly population means a direct increase in age related diseases such as dementia and poor mental health outcomes such as depression, anxiety, suicide and serious constraints on the quality of life among elderly individuals. The need to identify new and unmet problem areas and develop efficient therapeutic outcomes for this special population is stressed.