Ong P S
Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health & Woodbridge Hospital, 10 Buangkok View, Singapore 539747.
Ann Acad Med Singap. 2003 Nov;32(6):764-70.
Depression is a common psychiatric disorder in older people but tends to be underrecognised and undertreated, leading to impaired functioning, increased morbidity and mortality including suicide, and greater service utilisation.
A Medline search of journal articles on depression in older people, which highlighted specific and pertinent issues of prevalence, classification, screening instruments, elderly suicide and various treatment modalities, was done.
Late-life depression represents a heterogenous group of mood disturbances that may present with atypical features and occur in a complex medical psychosocial context. Appropriate screening and assessment procedures and holistic, multidisciplinary treatment approaches are discussed. Future challenges lie in areas of early detection and intervention, advances in treatment strategies, training and service developments and effective prevention programmes.
By raising awareness and understanding of depression among primary healthcare and other healthcare practitioners, more depressed elderly with comorbid medical problems can be successfully identified and helped.
抑郁症是老年人中常见的精神障碍，但往往未得到充分认识和治疗，导致功能受损、发病率和死亡率（包括自杀）增加以及医疗服务利用率提高。
对关于老年人抑郁症的期刊文章进行了医学文献数据库检索，重点关注患病率、分类、筛查工具、老年自杀以及各种治疗方式等特定且相关的问题。
晚年抑郁症是一组异质性的情绪障碍，可能具有非典型特征，并发生在复杂的医学心理社会背景中。讨论了适当的筛查和评估程序以及全面的多学科治疗方法。未来的挑战在于早期发现和干预、治疗策略的进展、培训和服务发展以及有效的预防计划等领域。
通过提高初级医疗保健和其他医疗从业者对抑郁症的认识和理解，可以成功识别并帮助更多患有合并症的抑郁老年人。
