Researchers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Baltimore and George Washington University in Washington, D.C. surveyed seniors to investigate the link between depression and nursing home admission. A total of 13,261 of the 141,000 seniors surveyed said they had "felt sad or depressed much of the time" during the last year. At the end of the study period, 13 percent of them were living in nursing homes.
The relationship between depression and nursing home admission could be due to the effect depression has on illness and lifestyles, the researchers say. Previous studies have shown that depression can affect blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, while other studies have shown that depression sometimes leads to increased alcohol consumption and poor diets.
Dr. Yael Harris of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Baltimore says seniors should be monitored for signs of depression so they can be treated early on.
"Only once physicians take depression seriously and begin monitoring for it like they do for blood pressure and weight gain will we begin to tackle this problem which affects so many seniors and is associated with so many adverse outcomes," he says.
