Aging into Better Mental Health by Lauren Clark
Aging adds plenty of health concerns to your life and can alter how you feel about yourself and the world around you. This is made even more difficult for seniors with mental illnesses. With increasing chronic health conditions, loss of loved ones, and losing independence, depression rates rise for those over 65. “More than two million of the 34 million Americans age 65 and older suffer from some form of depression.” (Mental Health America) 10 COMING OF AGE FALL 2021
Angelo Pananas is the director of Behavioral Health at West Florida Hospital where they have a psychiatric unit dedicated to seniors at the Pavilion. The Pavilion is a 56-bed inpatient psychiatric program with 18 beds in their geriatric unit. The program is certified through the Alzheimer’s Association’s Institute for Healthcare Improvement Age Friendly Initiative, a assessment based on fair and equitable treatment of patients living with Alzheimer’s disease. “This includes mentation—a psychiatric evaluation and cranial nerve assessment, medication, physical therapy, and working with patients’ goals,” Pananas said. Most patients are suffering from depression or are in agitated states of dementia that can be difficult for family to deal with without a plan.
Dr. Shabana Jaffri is one of the psychiatrics at the Pavilion and says that they often get patients who have hit a critical care point in their mental health that they did not have to reach. “I think the most common thing is they have to watch when they retire is if they don’t have a proper plan because they have had very busy lives, and suddenly, they’re just staying at home.” One thing that retirement without any plans can uncover is bipolar disorder. Found in an estimated 2 percent of the population, bipolar disorder is characterized by alternating depression and manic or hypomanic states. Hypomania can go undetected as it may manifest in some individuals as hyper-productivity. Retirement may uncover this as a person becomes
