Depression, Anxiety And Cognitive Abilities Of The Elderly: Current Situation And Risk Factors

Objective: This study focuses on the elderly’s depression, anxiety andcognitive abilities, described the current situations respectively,explored the risk factors of these problems, and analyzed therelationships between them.Methods: This thesis used questionnaire and interview methods, andsurveyed365seniors (aged from60to92) from4communities inTaiYuan City, ShanXi Province. The questionnaires include GDS(Geriatric Depression Scale), SAS (Self-Rating Anxiety Scale), MoCA(Montreal Cognitive Assessment), SSRS (Social Support Rating Scale),LES (Life Events Scale).Results:(1) A higher incidence rate of geriatric depression, anddepression level in women is higher than men, city seniors’depression level is higher than that of the rural elderly, the elderlywho have less sleep or lower social support or more life events alsohave higher depression level.(2) Anxiety disorders in the elderlypopulation is common, and female’s anxiety level is higher than that of male, the elderly who have less sleep or lower social support or morelife events also have higher anxiety level.(3) Most elderly people havecognitive impairment, female’s cognitive abilities worse than that ofmale, senior people who have higher education or worked on mentallabor or have higher social support trend to have better cognitiveabilities.(4) Geriatric depression is closely correlated with anxiety,and the cognitive abilities.(5) Anxiety and life events have significantpositive predictive effect on geriatric depression, social support hassignificant negative predictive effect on geriatric depression, itmeans seniors who have higher anxiety level, more life events, lesssocial support are tend to experience higher depression.(6) Geriatricdepression has significant positive predictive effect on geriatricanxiety, sleep and hobby have significant negative predictive effecton geriatric anxiety, in other words, the elderly who have higherdepression, less sleep, fewer hobbies tend to experience moreanxiety.(7) Education, age, gender, sleep, social support havesignificant effects on the elderly’s cognitive abilities, female seniorswho have lower education, older age, less sleep, less social supporttend to suffer from cognitive impairment.