 Large number of older Americans copes well with the cognitive and physical changes related to the process of aging as well as varied losses, such as the loss of family members and close friends that often associated with elderly life. Nevertheless, almost 20 % of the population aged 55 years and older suffers from specific mental disorders that are not actually part of normal aging process. They include depression, anxiety disorders, and dementia like Alzheimer’s disease that can be debilitating for an older adult’s quality of life.
Depression
Between 8 to 20% of older adults in the community and up to 37% in the world suffer from the symptoms of depression. These symptoms can arrange from depressive illness to depressive symptoms that fall short of meeting full diagnostic criteria for a disorder and concerned with an increased risk of developing major depression. It doesn’t matter what form of theses disorders, however, depressive symptoms are not a normal part of aging process.
Elderly people tend to be continued and to interfere essentially with an individual's ability to function. Whereas other people have normal emotional experiences of sadness, loss, grief, or passing mood states. Depression often occurs along with other serious sicknesses like cancer, diabetes, or heart disease.
Due to these conditions doctors may mistakenly decide that depression is a normal result of these problems. These factors jointly promote underdiagnosis and undertreatment of depressive disorders in elderly people. Depression should be cured when it occurs. Many efficient therapies are available. If depression left untreated, it impairs one’s delight in life and may lead to disability.
Cognitive Health (Brain Health)
Cognitive health is an essential part of healthy aging. It refers to maintaining and improving mental skills like memory, learning, planning, and decision-making. Many elderly people falsely think becoming decrepit or forgetting is a natural part of aging process. Approximately one in four older adults experiences these events, known collectively as cognitive decline. You have to know that they are not a normal part of healthy aging.
Some certain changes in cognitive health occur when you get older. Normal changes usually mean a slower temp of learning and the need for new information to be repeated. The great number of older adults will experience these normal changes in cognition, but some of them will experience cognitive decline. Elderly people with cognitive decline are more likely to suffer from dementia later in life.
Among Americans aged 65 years and older, about 6% to10% have dementia, and 1/3 of elderly people with dementia have Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, researchers have not found a way to prevent dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, but cognitive decline may be preventable. Late researchers reported that physically activity, control of hypertension, and participation in social activities may help you maintain and improve your cognitive health.
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