A major indian mind-set is that majority of people feel the "retirement effect" after they reach 60.
More than the society, its their own psychological self that forces them to feel inactive and unproductive.
The feeling of worthlessness slowly takes over as their activity level is restricted to household activities.
Being the elder in the house, the individual feels shy or restless to talk and share their feelings with younger members.
Keeping the feeling in his/her mind adds to the emotional pain creating behavioral changes like restlessness, anger, irritation, sleep disturbance and mood swings.
Since they aren't ready to listen or talk to "younger" members of the family, most "in-house" counseling becomes useless... with them mostly resorting to the statement - "don't tell us what to do, we taught you everything.. and we are old enough to understand everything".
Higher expenditure is seen in terms of medical bills, carelessly breaking things, because of the untreated stress and lack of concentration.
The restlessness slowly becomes sadness, and the behavior changes become a further burden to handle.
The combination of the battle within their mind and the battle with the family, results into a depression which is mostly over-looked.
The common Signs of Elderly Clinical depression?
1. lack of interest in new activity. Pushing the responsibilities onto someone else, and finding pleasure in criticizing that person.
2. excessively remembering older times.
3. crying and saying that their life has been a "failure".
4. Easily irritable, might show extreme mood swings or sudden outbursts of anger on petite issues.
There is high amount of taunting.
5. Changes in sleep pattern. With more time to fall asleep.
6. Not caring about their health.
7. Excessively negative behavior like over-criticizing, over-generalizing, extreme possessiveness, etc.
8. Recent Memory problems – in which a person is not able to remember recent events. Like forgetting where he/she has placed her personal items, forgetting conversations held in the morning, forgetting to remember messages, etc.
9. repeating one action again and again.
10. Episodes of crying.
11. Constantly talking about dying or expressing desire to go away to some remote place away from the family.
Cure -
1. handling an elderly patient can be difficult, as they might be egoistic.
2. they also fail to recognize any emotional problems, as they haven't been exposed to knowledge of the same.
3. Its important to take them to a psychiatrist/counselor, who can help identify their problem.
4. If they fail to come voluntarily to a psychiatrist/counselor its important to talk to their friends. They can help to push them to visit one.
5. in many cases very mild medicines have to be given with or without their knowledge.
(proper discussion with the psychiatrist is essential)
once their restlessness and sadness is controlled, they can continue follow up on their own.
for further information, contact me -
Dr.Hemant Mittal (MBBS, DPM, MD(mindmantra))
(Psychiatrist, Motivational Writer and Counselor)
email – eksoch@gmail.com
website – www.mindmantra.in
clinic address- 15, shreeji plaza, next to ice n spice restaurant, opposite seawoods station, seawoods (east)
Navi Mumbai
More than the society, its their own psychological self that forces them to feel inactive and unproductive.
The feeling of worthlessness slowly takes over as their activity level is restricted to household activities.
Being the elder in the house, the individual feels shy or restless to talk and share their feelings with younger members.
Keeping the feeling in his/her mind adds to the emotional pain creating behavioral changes like restlessness, anger, irritation, sleep disturbance and mood swings.
Since they aren't ready to listen or talk to "younger" members of the family, most "in-house" counseling becomes useless... with them mostly resorting to the statement - "don't tell us what to do, we taught you everything.. and we are old enough to understand everything".
Higher expenditure is seen in terms of medical bills, carelessly breaking things, because of the untreated stress and lack of concentration.
The restlessness slowly becomes sadness, and the behavior changes become a further burden to handle.
The combination of the battle within their mind and the battle with the family, results into a depression which is mostly over-looked.
The common Signs of Elderly Clinical depression?
1. lack of interest in new activity. Pushing the responsibilities onto someone else, and finding pleasure in criticizing that person.
2. excessively remembering older times.
3. crying and saying that their life has been a "failure".
4. Easily irritable, might show extreme mood swings or sudden outbursts of anger on petite issues.
There is high amount of taunting.
5. Changes in sleep pattern. With more time to fall asleep.
6. Not caring about their health.
7. Excessively negative behavior like over-criticizing, over-generalizing, extreme possessiveness, etc.
8. Recent Memory problems – in which a person is not able to remember recent events. Like forgetting where he/she has placed her personal items, forgetting conversations held in the morning, forgetting to remember messages, etc.
9. repeating one action again and again.
10. Episodes of crying.
11. Constantly talking about dying or expressing desire to go away to some remote place away from the family.
Cure -
1. handling an elderly patient can be difficult, as they might be egoistic.
2. they also fail to recognize any emotional problems, as they haven't been exposed to knowledge of the same.
3. Its important to take them to a psychiatrist/counselor, who can help identify their problem.
4. If they fail to come voluntarily to a psychiatrist/counselor its important to talk to their friends. They can help to push them to visit one.
5. in many cases very mild medicines have to be given with or without their knowledge.
(proper discussion with the psychiatrist is essential)
once their restlessness and sadness is controlled, they can continue follow up on their own.
for further information, contact me -
Dr.Hemant Mittal (MBBS, DPM, MD(mindmantra))
(Psychiatrist, Motivational Writer and Counselor)
email – eksoch@gmail.com
website – www.mindmantra.in
clinic address- 15, shreeji plaza, next to ice n spice restaurant, opposite seawoods station, seawoods (east)
Navi Mumbai
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