Late-life Depression

Abstract

Late-life depression is a complicated disorder with diagnostic and treatment pitfalls due to interference of serious social and somatic conditions of life in old age and often due to an “atypical” profile of symptoms. The article treats the nature of these difficulties and discusses the concept of depression. Old age is treated from two different angles: from the perspective of normality and pathology related to depressive symptomatology. It is concluded that late-life depression is a field demanding extended somatic knowledge by the psychotherapist. It is also concluded that even though the last decades have brought much clarification, there are still unanswered questions especially related to causal mechanisms.

Keywords:

• clinical psychology
• aged mental health
• depression