(Press-News.org) The numbers are, well, depressing: More than 2 million people age 65 and older suffer from depression, including 50 percent of those living in nursing homes. The suicide rate among white men over 85 is the highest in the country — six times the national rate.
And we're not getting any younger. In the next 35 years, the number of Americans over 65 will double and the number of those over 85 will triple.
So the question becomes, how to help elderly depressed individuals?
Researchers at UCLA turned to a gentle, Westernized version of tai chi chih, a 2,000-year-old Chinese martial art. When they combined a weekly tai chi exercise class with a standard depression treatment for a group of depressed elderly adults, they found greater improvement in the level of depression — along with improved quality of life, better memory and cognition, and more overall energy — than among a different group in which the standard treatment was paired with a weekly health education class.
The results of the study appear in the current online edition of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
"This is the first study to demonstrate the benefits of tai chi in the management of late-life depression, and we were encouraged by the results," said first author Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a UCLA professor-in-residence of psychiatry. "We know that nearly two-thirds of elderly patients who seek treatment for their depression fail to achieve relief with a prescribed medication."
In the study, 112 adults age 60 or older with major depression were treated with the drug escitalopram, a standard antidepressant, for approximately four weeks. From among those participants, 73 who showed only partial improvement continued to receive the medication
daily but were also randomly assigned to 10 weeks of either a tai chi class for two hours per week or a health education class for two hours per week.
All the participants were evaluated for their levels of depression, anxiety, resilience, health-related quality of life, cognition and immune system inflammation at the beginning of the study and again four months later.
The level of depression among each participant was assessed using a common diagnostic tool known as the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, which involves interviewing the individual. The questions are designed to gauge the severity of depression. A cut-off score of 10/11 is generally regarded as appropriate for the diagnosis of depression.
The researchers found that among the tai chi participants, 94 percent achieved a score of less than 10, with 65 percent achieving remission (a score of 6 or less). By comparison, among participants who received health education, 77 percent achieved scores of 10 or less, with 51 percent achieving remission.
While both groups showed improvement in the severity of depression, said Lavretsky, who directs UCLA's Late-Life Depression, Stress and Wellness Research Program, greater reductions were seen among those taking escitalopram and participating in tai chi, a form of exercise that is gentle enough for the elderly.
"Depression can lead to serious consequences, including greater morbidity, disability, mortality and increased cost of care," Lavretsky said. "This study shows that adding a mind-body exercise like tai chi that is widely available in the community can improve the outcomes of treating depression in older adults, who may also have other, co-existing medical conditions, or cognitive impairment.
"With tai chi," she said, "we may be able to treat these conditions without exposing them to additional medications."
INFORMATION:
Other authors on the study included Lily L. Alstein, Richard E. Olmstead, Linda M. Ercoli, Marquertie Riparetti-Brown, Natalie St. Cyr and Michael R. Irwin, all of UCLA.
Funding for the study was provided by the National Institutes of Health, the General Clinical Research Centers Program, the UCLA Cousins Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and the UCLA Older Americans Independence Center.
The authors report no conflict of interest.
The UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences is the home within the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA for faculty who are experts in the origins and treatment of disorders of complex human behavior. The department is part of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, a world-leading interdisciplinary
research and education institute devoted to the understanding of complex human behavior and the causes and consequences of neuropsychiatric disorders.
For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.
END
IC Companys A/S is a Danish listed group formed in 2001 by the merger of Carli Gry International A/S and InWear Group A/S. The company, which registered an annual revenue of DKK 3.5 billion in 2009/10, runs and develops 11 strong and independent brands: Peak Performance, Tiger of Sweden, Jackpot, InWear, Matinique, Saint Tropez, Part Two, Cottonfield, By Malene Birger, Soaked in Luxury and Designers Remix.
With the global financial crisis crippling companies worldwide, IC Companys worked hard to cut back costs and weathered the storm by staying profitable throughout ...
For worms, choosing when to search for a new dinner spot depends on many factors, both internal and external: how hungry they are, for example, how much oxygen is in the air, and how many other worms are around. A new study demonstrates this all-important decision is also influenced by the worm's genetic make-up.
In the simple Caenorhabditis elegans nematode, the researchers found that natural variations in several genes influence how quickly a worm will leave a lawn of bacteria on which it's feeding. One of the genes, called tyra-3, produces a receptor activated by adrenaline—a ...
Once thought to exclusively inhabit its namesake mountain range, the threatened Andean cat—a house cat-sized feline that resembles a small snow leopard in both appearance and habitat—also frequents the Patagonian steppe at much lower elevations, according to a new study published by the Wildlife Conservation Society and partners.
The finding represents a range extension for the Andean cat, which normally occurs at altitudes above 3,000 meters (approximately 9,800 feet). The new survey presents evidence of the cats occurring at elevations as low as 650 meters (approximately ...
Paleontologists agree that it's difficult to observe behavior in fossil specimens that are dead – even extinct – and petrified. One method is to find a modern, living, species that has some similarities to the ancient animal.
That's the strategy adopted by David L. Meyer, University of Cincinnati professor of geology and colleagues as they study a group of ancient shellfish known as brachiopods. Although they resemble clams or other shelled mollusks, brachiopods are more closely related to marine worms. Relatively rare today, brachiopods were a dominant species in Paleozoic ...
Home shoppers who want the bigger bedroom count, but not the responsibilities of a big yard, have two great choices at Pardee Homes' Manzanita Trail in Pacific Highlands Ranch. The classic front porch designed Plan 1 and Plan 2 homes each have four bedrooms and very manageable side courtyards that help free the homeowner from yard work. Residents at Manzanita Trail also enjoy all the benefits of living within walking distance to the private Pacific Highlands Ranch Recreation Center.
Families like the McSherrys, who have four children, were thrilled to downsize from their ...
Washington, D.C. (March 16, 2011) -- Measuring the mechanical strength of cancer cell mucus layers provides clues about better ways to treat cancer, and also suggests why some cancer cells are more resistant to drugs than others, according to Kai-tak Wan, associate professor of engineering at Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.
According to Wan, healthy tissues naturally secrete mucus to protect against infection. Cancer cells, however, produce far more mucus than healthy cells.
Mucus consists of protein "stalks" attached to sugar sidechains, or "branches." This ...
(Edmonton) If you have time to quickly swipe your pager or cell phone three times, that would be your best bet to get rid of most of the bacteria. And a simple tissue moistened with saline would do the trick. But if you only have time for a single swipe of a 'dirty' phone – you'd be better off reaching for a disinfectant wipe.
Those are the highlights of a recently published research study that appeared online in PubMed, with the discoveries having been made by a team of researchers in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta.
"It was the mechanical ...
Few specimens inspire greater thrills among fossil collectors than a complete trilobite. These ancient arthropods – relatives of lobsters, spiders and insects – went extinct more than 250 million years ago, but are sometimes found in beautifully preserved condition. In rare instances, an entire population of trilobites is found fossilized together. Carlton E. Brett finds evidence for ancient environment and behavior in these mass graves.
Brett, University of Cincinnati professor of geology, will present his findings March 20 at the Geological Society of America regional ...
A promising new approach for checking the accuracy of measurements of hazardous indoor air pollutants may soon be ready for prime time, report researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Virginia Tech.* The measurement tool, a reference sample for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), would be a boon to testers of indoor air quality and to manufacturers of paints, rugs, cleaners and other building products.
The researchers put their innovation—thin squares of plastic saturated with vapors of a common solvent—through the paces at four testing ...
Just as a chain is as strong as its weakest link, a building is as secure against the environment as its most degraded joint sealants, about 50 percent of which fail in less than 10 years after installation.
The upshot for U.S. homeowners is that moisture damage due to failed sealants is responsible for much of the $65 billion to $80 billion they collectively shell out for house repairs annually.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are assembling a toolkit of measurement devices and scientific data that will help manufacturers of ...
