Clinicians of a certain age, including this writer, who have had the privilege of
developing longitudinal care relationships with scores of older depressed patients
and their families, have experienced the joys, challenges and sorrows of working with
this population. There is nothing like seeing a patient with depression severe enough
to impair her usual activities and to cause her to pull back from her friends and
extended family eventually turn the corner through a mix of meds, psychoeducation
and therapy, and ultimately resume her daily life. However, not all patients experience
a clear path to remission, with nonresponse, partial response, medication side effects,
and ever-present psychosocial factors testing one's clinical skills. Sadly, we have
also had the experience of working with an older patient and his family over many
years, and then having a family member come forward with concerns about his memory
slipping.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 07, 2021
Accepted:
January 3,
2021
Received:
December 31,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2021 Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.
