Deonah Cendejas
Staff Writer
Ryan Harrison, senior adjunct professor, presented ways to combat depression in older adults, specifically with complimentary and alternative medicine, Monday in the President’s Dining Room.
“A lot of older adults are taking a lot of medications that may mask or even contribute to depression,” said Harrison, who is also the director of resident life and wellness at Hillcrest. “Depression in older adults is excused just because of old age.”
Harrison explained the two most common types of depression in adults 65 years and older are major depressive disorder and persistent depressive disorder. Such depression can contribute to other illnesses, obesity, arthritis, cancer and even death.
Harrison shed light on surprising statistics.
“Older adult men are at the highest risk of completed suicide,” Harrison said. “Women are 50 to 60 percent more likely to experience older adult depression.”
Harrison explained that treatments for depression tend to be in the form of medication, although there is no actual consensus that says which medication works best.
Research has shown that psychotherapy has worked just as well as medications, and there is little evidence to prove that one treatment is more effective than another. Because of this, Harrison explained the effects and benefits of complimentary and alternative medicine, or CAM.
CAM includes alternative medical systems, mind-body medicine, biological-based therapies, manipulative and body-based therapies, and energy-related therapies, Harrison said. CAM can be comprised of natural supplements, chiropractic therapies, massage therapy, yoga and acupuncture.
CAM is categorized as the “other” treatments for depression, in comparison to medication.
“It would be good for us in our society to consider other ways that would be helpful,” said Al Clark, professor of humanities. “There’s a lot (Harrison) hopes to do in the future and it seems like it is an excellent beginning.”
Harrison explained research has proven that yoga and chiropractic therapy have been successful at reducing the symptoms of depression in older adults.
“The majority of older adults with depressive symptoms who use CAM to address those depressive symptoms do find it helpful,” Harrison concluded through his study.
Harrison also found that the majority of CAM users are educated women, partly due to their financial capability.
“I learned how prevalent CAM therapy use is in society,” said sophomore biology major Tanner Long. “I didn’t think it was as mainstream as it is.”
Deonah Cendejas can be reached at deonah.sharifi-cendejas@laverne.edu.
Deonah Cendejas
These statistics for depression in older adults is quite shocking. It’s amazing that 50 to 60 percent of women are more likely to experience depression as older adults, and that men are at the highest risk to contemplate suicide. It’s no wonder why Ryan Harrison is conducting this study to treat depression in older adults. It seems like the type of therapy that he’s put together to treat depression would be effective. Increasing the amount of nutrient intake in an adult’s diet paired with practicing yoga, acupuncture, massage therapy, and chiropractic therapy have all been proven to treat depression in many different studies over the past several years. What I want to know is specifically what he designed as part of the biological-based therapies and mind-body medicine. It seems as though giving patients nutritional supplements would fall under those categories, so I want to know if there are any details to CAM therapy that isn’t made clear in this article.