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.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
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