Taking Care of yourself

 Depressive disorders: two questions to ask yourself

As we get older, we are unfortunately more commonly faced with difficult events, like disease or mourning. It is normal to have feelings of sadness or discouragement following events of this kind, but we cannot let this become permanent or feel that life no longer seems worth living.

Certain depressive symptoms may occur in anyone from time to time, especially during a difficult period. If these symptoms are persistent or present almost every day, this may be depression.

Typical symptoms of depression are loss of interest in activities usually enjoyed, unexplained lack of energy, permanent discouragement or despair Depression often comes with sleep, appetite or memory problems, or pains or difficulties in accomplishing activities of daily living

Check for possible depressive disorders

During the past month, have you been bothered by feeling down, depressed or hopeless?

During the past month, have you been bothered by little interest or pleasure in doing things?

Results

If you answered yes to at least one of these two questions, you may be suffering from depression  Even if this may not be easy, it is worthwhile to talk to your doctor, as effective treatments do exist

Caring for a loved one: don’t let yourself get overwhelmed

Nowadays, older people are called on to provide occasional or regular assistance to a spouse, parent, loved one or neighbour (family caregivers). Caring for an elderly loved one is nothing new, especially for women who are often drawn upon in this regard, but two aspects make things more difficult today. Firstly, women more often work outside the home than before, and caregiving represents an additional task.

Secondly, because of longer life expectancies, people often have to care for a loved one when they are themselves elderly and possibly in frail health.

Family caregivers risk seeing their own health deteriorate, all the more so since they lack time to take care of themselves, even going as far as postponing their own medical appointments.

Caring for an elderly loved one may involve very different situations, depending on the extent and the cause of the loss of independence.

While offering help to ensure transportation or manage finances may be rewarding, providing daily assistance with meals or personal hygiene sometimes leads to burnout, as a result of both the physical and emotional involvement.

For loved ones, seeing someone they care for lose the ability

to accomplish simple tasks on their own is both painful and distressing.

In the case of dementia, lack of recognition and relational difficulties make things even more frustrating. In addition, there may sometimes be financial considerations, as well as family and social repercussions. In comparison with the help provided by medical and social services, family caregivers ensure most of the assistance and care required by the dependent persons.

They often feel that it is their role to assist their loved ones and sometimes hesitate to ask for help, even when home care services exist.

Since the risk of burnout and depression is not negligible, family caregivers should be encouraged to try to define the limits of their commitment and to delegate certain tasks in order to take some time for themselves.

Chronic pain, for example, affects nearly half of people aged over 65 years, but some consider that, at their age, it is normal to feel pain, such as joint pain.

 While it may sometimes be difficult to treat the cause of the pain, it is worthwhile to contact your doctor again if a treatment does not seem to be sufficiently effective, and to sometimes try several different treatments

Memory loss is another source of concern for many people of a certain age, who fear the onset of dementia  Often, elderly people have simple memory lapses, resulting from the fact that the memorization process becomes less effective with age  It may be necessary for them to find strategies, like writing down what they are afraid of forgetting, and exercising their memory by doing crossword puzzles or mental math, for example.

However, these lapses may also signal the onset of dementia, especially when these people also experience new difficulties, for instance, in making payments or finding their words, or have mood swings.

If you have any concerns about your memory or that of a loved one, don’t hesitate to talk to your doctor. A dementia diagnosis involves extensive testing and also requires the exclusion of other causes of memory disorders, such as depression.

Other problems, such as balance disorders, falls and many other conditions, should not be trivialized. Lastly, whatever concern you may have about your health, deserves to be investigated by a health professional. There is no reason to accept health problems as an inevitable part of ageing.