Psychotherapeutic treatments for older depressed people

Depression is a common problem facing older people and is often associated with loneliness, physical illness and pain. The condition can last for some years and causes considerable distress and illness. A significant majority of depressed elders do not receive treatment because of difficulty in recognition of the condition. Not only can it present with lowered mood but may also present with physical problems including sleep disturbance, loss of appetite, loss of interest, anxiety and lack of energy. Psychotherapy is recognised as a treatment for mild depression. In this review we included seven small trials, involving a total of 153 participants, that examined psychotherapeutic treatments for depression in older people. Five trials compared a form of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) against control conditions, and the findings showed that CBT was more effective than control. Two individual trials compared CBT against psychodynamic therapy, with no significant difference in effectiveness indicated between the two approaches. Our review shows that there is relatively little research in this field and care must be taken in generalising what evidence there is to clinical populations.