Conference paper
SOCIO-ECONOMIC CULTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS AND DEPRESSION IN ELDERLY PEOPLE
Giuseppe Stranieri
; Mental Health Department, Catanzaro, Italy
Carmelo Carabetta
; Mental Health Department, Catanzaro, Italy
Abstract
The socio-economic and cultural evolution in the last decades encouraged a significant process of transformation of the life
conditions in advanced societies, particularly the average duration of the life of the elderly population, which since the second half
of the past century has increased by about 60%, becoming from an average of fifty years to about eighty two for women and eighty
for men. This phenomenon enables scholars and in particular demography scholars, to assume that in 2030 the number of elderly
persons will reach about two billion worldwide. This development of an increasingly longer life expectancy, justifies the trust in the
great progress that characterizes our society.
The rapid growth of this segment of population, due to the improved living conditions and the related progress in science,
technology and medicine, in addition to its positive aspects, also includes negative elements, which already affect the Welfare State
and, more generally, the public administration that is called to fill the gaps that the transformation of the family and kinship
networks have treated with indifference.
The problems of the increasingly long-lived, is not freed from new elements of negativity related to the physical and mental
decline that leads to the development of new diseases in addition to those already present, ans is increasingly motivated to seek the
best remedies to shorten or eliminate the diseases of the elderly. In this context, Depression assumes a central dimension which will
surely be a central concern for the economic, social and health impact and for the multitude of changes that put in crisis many of the
traditional institutions.
This work aims to analyze through a careful review of the scientific literature, the causes of the spread of this disease, the
diagnostic difficulties and possible solutions for prevention and care.
Keywords
depression - social transformation - old age
Hrčak ID:
264496
URI
Publication date:
8.9.2015.
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