Guest blog by James Roy
Older people are more prone to mental health issues as compared to younger adults and this number increases as the population of the world increase. The risk of different types of mental diseases such as isolation, affective and anxiety disorders, dementia, and psychosis, among others is high among adults elders than younger ones.
Following are some of the most common problems that elder people suffer from:
Anxiety
Excessive worrying, health, finance, and falling are some of the main factors that leads to anxiety. Older people think more about their health, their finance, and their body strength, if an elder person falls once then there is a tremendous amount of anxiety that they will fall again.
Cognitive impairment
Mostly under-diagnosed and under-treated cognitive impairment is one of the major causes of the higher rate of mental health issues in elder people. cognitive diseases are stigmatized and people do not talk about them openly until it gets severe and almost in-treatable.
Mood disorder
Depression is one of the most underrated problem in society, it has a greater role in causing mental disorders. Loneliness, loss of a spouse, and loss of health are the factors that contribute to mood disorders.
Reasons why elder people are suffering from mental health issues
Aging and changes in our Mind and Body
We all know that as we get older we change, we change not only in our body features but we also change in our cognitive ability. None of us remain what we were in our 20s. We all go downhill some faster and some slower but we all have changed or will change. with aging, a person goes through several changes such as cognitive changes, physiological changes, health changes, and social changes.
Impact of cognitive and physiological changes
Cognitive and physiological changes also impact how we see over selves in terms of our self-esteem, whether can we do the same things as we used to do, can we do them as efficiently, can we do them as fast, what impact does it have on how we feel about ourselves and how confident are we in our selves and how we see our body, for example, a person has a stroke on one side of his body and is not able to use that side, how will he see himself in terms of his body?
Now imagine can a person with these cognitive and physiological changes feels as lovable as he used to when he was all good. most probably not and that is why older people are more prone to mental problems.
Impact of health changes
Good health is a blessing. As we know after a certain age our health starts to deteriorate on daily basis. Our body strength starts to go down day by day. We start feeling weak. All these factors somehow take us to the nostalgia of being young and being able to do everything with ease without any difficulty and pain. This is the point where we start overthinking and start taking stress due to our inability to do things we once used to do and then this stress and
overthinking leads to mental problems.
Social Changes
A human being is a social animal and to survive in society we need to be social whether we want it or not we have to interact with other people to make it through life. Each of us has our social circle, but with aging circumstances get change so we do not fit in the people we use to spend time with and that is where we have to change our social circle these social change are not easy and it may sometimes leads to loneliness and social isolation which are among the
major causes of mental health problems.
Remember loneliness and social isolation are two different things. Sometimes you may be living alone but you are in touch with your family and friends but other times you may feel isolated sitting among ten’s or twenties of people.
Lack of attention from health care services providers towards the problem
Besides all these social, biological, and psychological issues another main issue that is the reason for higher mental health issues in elder people is the lack of proper attention towards this issue from the health care providers. If we want to lower the number we need to give proper attention to this issue. Respite senior care is an institution that takes care of senior citizens so if you want your loved one to live a happy and long healthy life you can avail their services.
