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A trio of late-life mental health scenarios demonstrate that families must seek to understand and cope with their older relatives' mood and behavior changes.
ABSTRACT During later life, older adults may be caregiving for people with late-onset mental health issues. The situation can alter family relationships and cause role transitions. This article offers three late-life mental health scenarios that require spouses or partners, adult children, and-or others to deal with an older adult family member's mood and behavior changes. Through case examples, the author explores geriatric depression, complicated grief, and provision of extended care for persons with severe mental illness, and highlights support for older care providers. | key words: care provision, aging and mental health, complicated grief, geriatric depression, aging and severe mental illness
Older adults become caregivers in later life for a variety of reasons, giving rise to role transitions and altered family relationships. This article offers three late-life mental health scenarios that require spouses or partners, adult children, andor others in close relationships with an older adult to deal with changes in mood and behavior. Two of these conditions, geriatric depression (experienced along with physical health conditions) and complicated grief, typically arise during later life. The third condition, severe mental illness, emerges earlier in the life course, but includes age-related changes, in both the care provider and care recipient, which impact the caregiving relationship.
For each condition, a brief summary of the nature of the mental health condition is described, as well as its impact on caregiving and support relationships.
Specific changes, such as role transitions and added care-provision responsibilities, are highlighted and illustrated in an accompany- ing case example (see the Author's Note on page 28).
Geriatric Depression
Physical and health changes that occur in later life can be accompanied by comorbid psychosocial conditions. In particular, patients who have had heart attacks and strokes have high incidences of anxiety and depression, post-event (Simning, Seplaki, and Conwell, 2018). This is notable, as these two health conditions are leading chronic conditions in adults older than age 65 (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics, 2016).
In particular, a stroke often results in physical changes that require rehabilitation to restore functioning. In a meta-analysis on research about depression and stroke, Ayerbe et al. (2013)...