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HEADING FOR A MAJOR DEPRESSION?

HHS_us_health_human_services_logo_nyreblog_com_.gifWatching for worse depression


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From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Everybody has feelings of depression sometimes. For others, though, it's not the blues, but a continual black mood, which doctors might diagnose as major depression. At the University of Rochester Medical Center, Jeffrey Lyness studied more than 600 people ages 65 and older, to predict when feelings of depression might grow into major depression.

Here are signs of higher risk:

[Jeffrey Lyness speaks] ``People who already had some low-level depressive symptoms, also people who perceived that they had poor quality of social support.'' 

Lyness says older people with those signs might want to keep an eye on whether things are getting worse, and have doctors, family and friends help.

The study in the American Journal of Psychiatry was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Learn more at hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

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