The population of the United States is as old as it’s ever been: The number of Americans aged 65 and older is going to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050. While this means that age-related health issues like arthritis and cardiovascular disease will certainly tick upward, the mental health side of the equation will also see an increase, especially when it comes to late-life depression.
Depression is already a sizable problem in the United States: More than 1 in 5 American adults will develop major depressive disorder (MDD) at some point in their lives. The numbers only get worse with age, as experts estimate that between 30% and 45% of older adults have depression.
While there are many things that you have to just grit your teeth and bear as you get older, depression certainly isn’t one of them. Dr. Diana Ghelber and the team here at the Institute for Advanced Psychiatry believe that it’s never too late to address depression, especially when you have a great tool like deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).
As we already reviewed, up to 45% of older adults experience depression, even those who have no history of the common mood disorder. There are many reasons why seniors may be more vulnerable to depression, including:
And the list goes on as aging is not without considerable challenges.
Making matters more complex, late-life depression often goes undiagnosed, since older adults are dealing with more health issues, and the depression can get lost in the mix.
Thanks to an aging population, health care providers are becoming more aware of the importance of checking for late-life depression. Even with the correct diagnosis, however, treating late-life depression can be tricky: One study reports that between 55% and 81% of late-life patients with MDD do not respond to antidepressants.
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t solutions, as TMS has helped scores of elderly people break free from debilitating depression.
With deep TMS, we stimulate areas of your brain that are associated with your reward system to create healthier neural pathways and improved mood regulation. In older people, TMS works exceptionally well because it not only stimulates these areas, it combats brain atrophy.
The study we referenced earlier found that deep TMS among 247 patients with MDD between the ages of 60 and 91 garnered great results. After 30 TMS sessions, there was a 79.4% response rate and, even more impressive, a 60.3% remission rate among study subjects.
Making deep TMS even more attractive as a solution for late-life depression is the fact that all the participants in the study tolerated the TMS sessions well and there were no adverse side effects.
This study reflects our own successes in using deep TMS to combat late-life depression.
If you’d like to learn more about treating late-life depression or you want to sit down with one of our team members to discuss whether deep TMS is right for you or a loved one. Please contact our office in Fort Worth, Texas, to schedule an appointment.
