Though studies which gauge depression among those already in nursing homes have often been conducted, this was the first of its kind to study the effects of ongoing depression among independent seniors and the subsequent need to be admitted to a nursing home for long-term care.
The 141,000 participants were followed for three and a half years and were personally able to answer the study questions on their own, without any assistance from family members or friends.
According to the report, a total of 13,261 respondents said they had "felt sad or depressed much of the time" during the past year of the survey. By the end of the study period, 13 percent of those individuals (a total of 2,005) had been admitted to a nursing home, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
That made depression the third greatest predictor of nursing home admissions, behind diabetes and heart failure. Depression even surpassed other conditions that are common in seniors, including cancer and arthritis.
A number of reasons for the link between depression and nursing home admission exist. Some speculate that depression causes alcohol abuse and poor diet, which may eventually lead to the need for long-term nursing care. Others note that depression also affects the body’s physical state of being, causing hypertension, heart disease, and other diseases that may prompt the need to enter a nursing home.
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