The Affects and Preventions of Depression on Seniors

Seniors who develop depression can develop depression because of a loss of a spouse or handicap issues.  Some seniors cannot get around as well as they did in the past.  Seniors often isolate themselves from people, but when they have someone around who cares, that person can introduce them to hobbies or travel tours, which can allow room for activeness.

Depression affects a person’s thinking, emotions, behavior and physical health.  Seniors can encounter very difficult events in their lives, such as the death of a loved one or changes in their medical condition, which can cause them to become depressed, but depression is not a normal way of dealing with a problem at any stage of a person’s life.  Depression can cause loneliness and isolation, it creates fear and more health problems, and can reduce a person’s sense of purpose.  As seniors age, they sometimes feel their sense of responsibility being slowly taken from them, such as losing driving privileges or lack of mobility.  The Durham Center for Senior Life was created to help seniors live involved and healthy lives and deal with isolation.  Seniors with or without grandchildren can enjoy special hobbies such as bird watching, geocaching and photographing.  They can also enjoy travel tours with other seniors or grandchildren that can be fun and rewarding because they can capture memories with photographs and create scrapbooks.

Seniors can enjoy many things in life.  With more senior programs and more people working together to create better senior activities, more seniors can continue to live depression free.