Geriatric Psychology

Last updated: 28-Oct-2008

What to Do When Your Parent Experiences Depression After a Stroke

For most people, the word "stroke" brings to mind a constellation of problems, including paralysis and difficulty with speech. But if your parent has recently had a stroke, you're probably well aware that the effects go well beyond the physical. The emotional aftermath can be just as overwhelming and far more difficult to sort out...

Nighttime can be nightmarish for those who live with someone in the moderate-to-advanced stages of dementia. The sleep patterns of caregivers over age 60 who provide direct, live-in care for people with dementia are significantly worse than those of noncaregivers, says a study in the new Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine...

How to Help Someone With Depression

Seniors often face stressful situations, including chronic illness, financial problems, and loss of independence. Add that to physical and emotional isolation, and you've got a recipe for depression. But there's a big difference between situational unhappiness and clinical depression...

After a heart attack, most people experience a whirlwind of emotions. On the one hand, your parent may be grateful to still be alive, but he may also feel frightened and anxious about the future. Will he be able to go back to his former lifestyle? Will he have another heart attack? He may also feel angry and upset about the unfairness of it all...

Mental and Emotional Health Care for Someone With Alzheimer’s Disease

People with dementia often have emotional symptoms such as depression and anxiety. These symptoms may be a direct result of the neurological changes caused by the illness. They can also be the person?s reaction to the awareness of change in his ability to function as he once could...

Symptoms of Depression

Just as depression endangers your care receiver's recovery, it also endangers your health and well-being. Depression increases your risk in every major disease category, particularly cardiovascular disease.

11 Warning Signs of Depression

Is it really depression or just a case of the blues? It's not always easy to tell the difference, especially when someone has what seems like good reason to be depressed, such as a chronic illness or loss of a loved one. But depression is very different from the blues in terms of duration and severity...

Medicare Coverage for Mental Health and Alzheimer's Care

Modern medicine recognizes that many mental and emotional problems are in fact physical illnesses or related to them. So, with either Medicare Part A hospital insurance plus Medicare Part B medical insurance, or with a Part C Medicare Advantage managed care plan, your parent has extensive coverage for...

Managing Type 2 Diabetes: How to Help Your Family Member Deal With Denial and Depression

It's not unusual for a senior to react to a diabetes diagnosis with denial and depression. A person's attitude toward his diabetes diagnosis -- whether he views it as a challenging opportunity to care for his body or a major medical disaster that's best ignored -- can have a huge impact on how successfully he manages this chronic condition...

This week Mayo Clinic researchers reported that men are 1.5 times more likely than women to have memory problems. You may wonder, then, how it can also be true (which it is) that more women develop and die from Alzheimer's?