Study identifies those elderly most at risk for major depression.
University of Rochester Medical Center researchers have pinpointed the prime factors identifying which elderly persons are at the highest risk for developing major depression.
The researchers, led by Jeffrey M. Lyness, M.D., professor of Psychiatry at the Medical Center, reported their findings in an article in the December issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.
Preventive treatments for people in the high-risk group hold promise for providing the greatest health benefit at the lowest cost, the researchers concluded.
"People with low-level depressive symptoms, who perceive that they have poor quality social support from other people, and with a past history of depression, were at particularly high risk to develop new major depression within the one-to-four year time period of the study," Lyness said. "This is good news, as we in the field are just learning how to prevent depression in particular high-risk groups. Future work will be able to test whether any of a variety of treatments—perhaps psychotherapy, perhaps medication, perhaps other things such as exercise—will help to prevent depression in persons suffering from the risks we identified in this study."
More than 600 people who were 65 years of age or older took part in the study. They were recruited from private practices and University-affiliated clinics in internal medicine, geriatrics and family medicine in Monroe County, N.Y. Only participants without an active diagnosis of major depression were included in the analyses.
