Thank you for Subscribing to Eldercare Review Weekly Brief
Eldercare Review | Friday, April 01, 2022
The positive part of elderly mental illness is that a considerable majority of geriatric mental illnesses can be precisely diagnosed and effectively treated if support is sought early.
FREMONT, CA: Mental health, in very easy terms, speaks about the state of a person's psychological, behavioral, and emotional well-being. The class on good mental health speaks about not just the lack of any mental diseases but also the individual's capability to understand his potential, cope with the stresses of life, capacity to learn, feel and handle a range of emotions, and the capacity to form and oversee the relationship with others.
Conversely, mental illness or mental health disorders are the health essentials that adversely affect how we think, feel, behave and interface with others. Usually, the terms mental health and mental disease are utilized interchangeably. Nevertheless, there is a distinction. Mental health is not equal to mental illness, even if poor mental health can cause mental illness. Some of the most typical mental illnesses in the elderly comprise dementia, depression, anxiety disorders, and powerful cognitive damage.
Stay ahead of the industry with exclusive feature stories on the top companies, expert insights and the latest news delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe today.
Retirement is one of the most important social factors that powerfully impact a working individual. Retirement forms a sense of reliance, which is undesirable for a senior person. Such people also observe a dip in their self-esteem and self-confidence and a loss of sense of authority resulting in depression and anxiety.
Modification in Family Systems – With new millennials choosing nuclear families, the conventional family structure functioning as a support system has also been lowered, guiding the elderly to feel lonely, left behind, or under-appreciated, inducing different kinds of mental health problems.
Financial Issues – This is also a major factor that adversely impacts a person's mental well-being. With a loss of a stable source of income, elderlies progressively feel a sense of impotence and dependency, which also influences their quality of life.
Most general symptoms of mental illness in older adults:
Confusion, disorientation, and problems focusing or decision making
Differences in weight – rise or drop in the appetite
Memory Loss, especially short-term memory problems
Inexplicable fatigue and energy loss or trouble sleeping/ sleep changes
Social withdrawal – lack of desire for things that used to be enjoyable
Feeling sad for longer than two weeks
A feeling of uselessness, incompatible guilt, and helplessness
Common disinterest in living or thoughts of suicide
In the case of the diagnosis of mental disability in older adults, in most circumstances, it goes underdiagnosed. The senior population doesn't feel the need for mental health care and seldom brings up the worry with their main health giver, who can guide them to a psychologist for early detection and treatment.
As such, we need to learn the difference between day-to-day forgetfulness and firm cognitive or memory loss or other signs of mental illness in seniors.
Besides the above-pointed symptoms of mental illness, if you mark changes in the look or way of dressing of your dear one or if they are confronting trouble handling finances or working with numbers, don't just ignore them as old age troubles, rather take notice, talk to them and get them the required consultation from a doctor. Early detection is key to treating varied older adult mental health problems.
More in News