La depresión del anciano vista por el geriatra

Depression is a problem of high prevalence in the elderly; however, often, geriatric de-pression is underdiagnosed and under-trea-ted. Epidemiological studies indicate that frailty, a state of high vulnerability to poor health outcomes, is common in old age. Re-cent evidence suggests that depression sha-res many characteristics and symptoms with fragility and, therefore, may also play an important role in determining vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. The clinical pre-sentation of depression in the elderly may be different from that of the young adult, with less common lower mood than in younger adults, howewer irritability, anxiety and so-matic symptoms may be more frequent, and It is often associated with somatic comorbi-dity and/o cognitive impairment. The diag-nostic process of depression in the elderly should begin by differentiating the origin of the depressive condition. Taking into ac-count these particularities, the treatment of depression in the elderly can be as effective as in the rest of the population, and there-fore its detection and correct diagnosis is essential