Older Adults at Increased Risk of Depression, Anxiety After Rehab Ends

Older adults who receive rehabilitation services are at higher risk for depressive and anxiety symptoms up to a year after rehabilitative services are discontinued compared with those who do not receive rehabilitative services, according to astudy in theAmerican Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.“As mental illness is associated with considerable morbidity and may affect rehabilitation outcomes, additional efforts to identify and treat depression and anxiety in these older adults may be warranted,” wrote Adam Simning, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Den tistry and colleagues.The researchers evaluated data from 5,979 adults in the 2016 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS), a nationwide study of Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years and older. As part of the NHATS, participants are interviewed annually. For this study, the researchers specifically focused on patient responses to the two-item Patient Health Questionaire (PHQ-2); the two-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-2) scale; and a question regarding whether they had received rehabilitative services and, if so, where they received these services.In the study sample, 16.5% reported receiving rehabilitation services in nursing home, inpatient, outpatient, or in-home settings in the prior year. A higher proportion of Medicare beneficiaries who received these rehabilitation services had clinically significant depressive and anxiety symptoms at follow-up than those who did not rec...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Adam Simning American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry anxiety depression GAD-2 National Health and Aging Trends Study PHQ-2 rehabilitation Source Type: research