Reasearch

5. About how many old people are on antidepressants?
7. How many old people live in poverty?
10. What is the suicide rate for old people?
12. How/on what do they spend their money?
14. Are they sexually active?


Depression is common in elderly people. Old people are at greater risk of developing adverse events while taking any medication. Its symptoms include chronic worry and anxiety and other problems, such as muscle tension, sleep disturbance and fatigue.As many as 7.3 percent of older people suffer from anxiety, and the percent is even higher among those receiving medical care. Social inferiority, isolation, physical weakness and vulnerability, all of which form part of the experience of poverty combine for many older people to make old age itself a form of social exclusion. Instead of achronological definition, old age is defined in many societies as a state of dependence and incapacity.Older people in poverty themselves tend to sharea view of ageing as incapacity. A commondimension of older people's poverty is a sense of uselessness and low self esteem,related to their perceived inability to participate in family and social life. "Between 1997 and 2006, the number of people living in severe poverty – defined as living on less than 40% of median population income – increased by 600,000. The poorest quarter of pensioner households saw their incomes rise by less than 1% last year, well below inflation. The poorest single pensioners saw their real incomes drop by 4%." The highest suicide rates of any age group occur among persons aged 65 years and older. There is an average of one suicide among the elderly every 90 minutes. In 1998, suicide ranked as the sixteenth leading cause of death among those aged 65 years and older and accounted for 5803 deaths among this age group in the U.S. Risk factors for suicide among older persons differ from those among the young. In addition to a higher prevalence of depression, older persons are more socially isolated and more frequently use highly lethal methods. They also make fewer attempts per completed suicide, have a higher-male-to-female ratio than other groups, have often visited a health-care provider before their suicide, and have more physical illnesses. Most old people spend their money on healthcare. They are retired so they are lving off social security, and the money they spend is just used on housing, haathcare such as medicine, insurance, and hospital/doctoral visits. Other than that its just on food,travel and clothing.Most Americans remain sexually active into their 60s, and nearly half continue to have sex regularly into their early 70s, researchers are reporting today as a result of the most comprehensive national survey to date of sexual behavior among older adults. But many older people also report struggling with sexual problems, like reduced desire and erectile difficulties. With more than 3,000 Americans, 57 to 85 years old, who gave detailed descriptions of their sexual activities.The National Institutes of Health, found that 84 percent of men from 57 to 64 reported having had some sexual contact with another person in the last year, compared with 62 percent of women in the same age group. Those figures dwindled to 38 percent and 17 percent, respectively, in people 75 and older. Among those adults who were sexually active, about two-thirds had sex at least twice a month into their 70s, and more than half continued at that pace into their 80s.



http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/318/7199/1640
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/01/20/antidepressant-eases-anxiety-in-older-adults.html
http://www.thematuremarket.com/50_plus_marketing/millions_elderly_people_live_in_poverty-10451-5.html
http://www.netwellness.org/question.cfm/44637.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/us/23sex.html