Anxiety and depression are the most common disorders among old people, later in life depression often hits as one thinks about their past and remember things that used to be, and the prognosis is usually long-term and can be chronic with higher relapses than with younger people (Afshari et al., 2019). The risks are higher for older people to have depression if they are isolated, have a chronic illness, and are lonely, those that have high family support, as well as income stability, often are less of a risk.

When it comes to younger adults there are other factors that can be used to help determine risk, such as biological and psychological factors, this too can be used for older adults as it would be age-related. Younger people can also feel depressed with loneliness, and they are at the most risk.

When comparing depression between elderly and younger people, it seems that depression is mainly caused by the mitigating factors of one’s life. Older adults tend to have symptoms of agitation, hypochondriasis, gastrointestinal issues, reduced guilt, and loss of sexual interest; research studies with elderly and younger people using information from RDC, ICD-9, ICD-10, DSM-III, DSM-III-R or DSM-IV criteria, on average older people often had more severe depression and when it came to psychotic depression both age groups were affected severely, younger people had more guilt (Hegeman et al., 2018).

When research studies used the Duke Depression Evaluation Schedule for the Elderly and Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale there was found to be similar phenomenology in depression for those over 60 years of age versus those less than that age, but overall research suggests that older adults are depressed more often than that of their younger counterparts (Hegeman et al., 2018).

When a person drives, they need to be able to react quickly to avoid a situation such as an accident. Someone that has dementia may not be able to react quickly enough which causes accidents where people are hurt or in some cases die. Dementia is a severe neurocognitive disorder it affects about 50 million people globally the most common disorder is Alzheimer’s disease (AD), which is neurodegenerative dementia; cognitive functions that are needed for driving are decreased when a person has dementia, and one must pay attention when driving and when someone has dementia these functions are impaired (Falkenstein et al., 2020).

So anyone that has dementia or AD should not be driving. They should lose their license and their right to drive.

References

Afshari, A., Rezai, R., & Dadras, F. (2019). The Effectiveness of structured reminiscence on anxiety and depression in the elderly. Aging Psychology, 5(3), 201-215. 10.22126/JAP.2019.4704.1368

Falkenstein, M., Karthaus, M., & Brüne-Cohrs, U. (2020). Age-Related diseases and driving safety. Geriatrics, 5(4), 80. https://doi.org/10.3390/geriatrics5040080

Hegeman, J. M., Kok, R. M., van der Mast, R. C., & Giltay, E. J. (2018). Phenomenology of depression in older compared with younger adults: Meta-analysis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 200(4), 275–281. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.111.095950