The John Tung Foundation yesterday said that many elderly people suffering depression are often neglected, with the symptoms being put down to being common effects of aging, and that based on related studies clinical visit rates of elderly people are relatively low compared with the prevalence of depression.
The foundation’s chief executive officer Yau Sea-wain (姚思遠) said that according to a survey the foundation conducted in 2010, about 11.8 percent of elderly people have experienced depression, while statistics from the WHO last year estimate that the overall prevalence of depression is about 5 percent.
“Fatigue, memory loss and physical discomfort are the three major warning signs of depression in the elderly,” Taiwanese Society of Geriatric Psychiatry standing director Huang Chung-cheng (黃宗正) said.
The symptoms are manifested through physical ailments, such as becoming tired easily or complaining about pain in different parts of the body.
Saint Mary’s Hospital Luodong superintendent Chen Yung-hsing (陳永興) said that “family members often mistake depression in elderly people for merely physical deterioration or the effects of aging,” because elderly people often display symptoms common to both depression and dementia at the same time.
Huang said that a conservative estimate based on research results showed that the prevalence of depression in elderly people could be about 12 percent, accounting for 310,000 people in Taiwan.
However, Chen said the clinical visit rate for depression among elderly people at Saint Mary’s Hospital Luodong only accounted for 1.3 percent of total clinical visits for depression, indicating that many people have still not received the care and treatment they need.
As symptoms of depression often occur when the seasons change, people should pay attention to elderly family members during the forthcoming Lunar New Year holiday, because they may feel especially lonely at home when other family members get together for outings, Chen said.
Huang suggested that family members spend more time listening to how elderly people feel, and seek medical assistance when needed.
“Caregivers often carry heavy physical and mental burdens from taking care of elderly people with depression, and may also show symptoms of fatigue, such as crying or other displays of emotion,” Huang said.
He said caregivers should pay attention to their own wellbeing and work on reducing their stress levels.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS