Dear Researchers,
Greetings! Very recently, one of our research articles have published in BMS Geriatrics where we discussed about the malnutrition and other geriatric depression risk factors. Here, we used 600 (300 depressed as cases and 300 non-depressed) older adult, residents (aged ≥60 years) of three rural communities of Bangladesh (see attachment).
Findings:
The study found no significant difference in gender (male Vs. female) between depressed (44.0% Vs. 56.0%) and non-depressed (46.0% Vs. 54.0%) older individuals. The study revealed that malnutrition was significantly (p
As a student of Zoology with special interest in Gerontology, innovative research in geriatric depression has ever fascinated me. In my opinion this subarea of Geropsychology has immense societal relevance.Your data aptly suggest direct relationship between malnutrition and geriatric depression.I expect you to explore other risk factors also in particular context of Senile population of Bangladesh.You may also plan studies pertaining to elderly suicide.You would like to go through my paper entitled 'Age - Suicide Nexus: Neurobiological Perspective.'published years back in IJG in context of Senile population of Bangladesh.
There is a strong relationship between the body and mind. Thus, the relationship between malnutrition and depression is not an exemption. Depression has both direct and indirect effect on malnutrition. Depression leads to loss of appetite, diminution of food intake and consequently weight loss. That is why change in the appetite and eating habits is a sign and a major criterion for diagnosis of depression. Similarly, treatment of depression improves the appetite and nutritional state in the elderly. On the other hand, malnutrition is a strong predictor for developing depressive symptoms because malnutrition is associated with the increased frailty of extreme old age that predispose them to some psychosocial problems including depression.
Lastly, due to the concept of empty nest syndrome, most ederly in both developed and deveoping countries suffer from isolation which is a significant risk factor for depression and malnutrion hence, they tend to present with the worse symptoms of depression and malnutrition.
I think it would be interesting to include the topic of frailty in the discussion, caused among other things by a sedentary lifestyle. Low functional capacity is an important factor related to cognition and depression...