THURSDAY, Jan. 22, 2004 (HealthDayNews) -- Depressed survivors of Nazi death camps are nearly twice as likely to consider suicide as other emotionally troubled Jewish seniors are, new research suggests.
For the depressed survivors, the lingering trauma of the Holocaust appears to "tax their ability to cope with the stress of life in general," says study author Diana E. Clarke, a research coordinator at the University of Toronto.
The finding appears in the February issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.
Another study in the journal reveals that one of every five depressed seniors surveyed had at least one handgun in his or her home. The finding indicates that doctors aren't doing a good enough job of convincing depressed patients to get rid of their guns, a mental health expert says.
While the problem of adolescent suicide gets far more attention in the media, elderly Americans are more likely to kill themselves than teens, researchers say. Suicide is the 15th leading cause of death among Americans aged 65 to 74, making it nearly as deadly as Alzheimer's disease in that age group, according to 2001 federal statistics.
The reasons for the high risk aren't entirely clear, but no one single challenge of growing old appears to be responsible, Clarke says.
"Most studies have pointed out that it is a combination of factors -- having experienced a traumatic event in life combined with social isolation, the experience of other negative life events, and one's state of health," she says.
In her study, Clarke and her colleagues looked at questionnaires filled out by 530 depressed Jewish seniors who had sought mental health counseling from a hospital program at Toronto's Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. A third were Holocaust survivors.
The seniors who survived the Holocaust were 87 percent more likely to say they were thinking about or actively planning to take their life. Very few had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Clarke suspects the horrors of the Holocaust set off a cascade of events -- including dislocation and loss of family -- that affected the survivors' lives for years. "The psychological scars do not go away for many survivors," she says. "They have to deal with these experiences over their lifetime, and that can affect how well they will cope with present challenges, such as losing a spouse or developing health problems."
Doctors and mental-health workers need to be aware of the potential emotional aftershocks of the Holocaust and keep them in mind when they evaluate elderly patients, Clarke says. Any Holocaust survivor who's depressed should be checked for signs of suicidal thoughts, she adds.
In the other study in the journal, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania report that about one-fifth of depressed seniors have guns at home.
The researchers surveyed 1,023 seniors at a clinic in the Pittsburgh area and found that 28 percent kept a firearm in their home and 20 percent owned a handgun.
"Most people said they had them for protection," says study author Dr. David Oslin, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. "They weren't rusty old handguns from World War II."
That's troubling, given the fact that 80 percent of suicides among elderly men are accomplished with firearms, the researchers add.
The rate of handgun ownership was the same among mentally healthy seniors and among those who reported being depressed or thinking about suicide.
The study is apparently the first of its kind. "We were shocked to realize that nobody knows how many older adults have firearms," Oslin says.
The findings suggest mental-health workers at the clinic weren't doing a good job of convincing their depressed patients to get rid of their firearms, at least temporarily, Oslin says.
"If we had been doing our job right in terms of treating these folks for depression, they would have fewer guns available," he says. "We should be asking about firearm ownership and getting them to get rid of it or locking it up while we're treating their depression."
More information
Get more details about the elderly and suicide from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the Institute on Aging.
