Depression is, like many health problems, an equal-opportunity disease. It can afflict anyone, at any age, from childhood to late in life.
The statistics bear this out. Beginning in grade school, 2 to 3 percent of children ages 6 to 12 may develop serious depression, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. The ADAA says 6 to 8 percent of teens may have the disease, and an estimated 2.8 million adolescents ages 12 to 17 had at least one major depressive episode in 2014.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness puts those numbers a bit higher, estimating that 13 percent of youth ages 8 to 15 and 21.4 percent of those ages 13 to 18 experience a severe mental disorder at some point during their life. And, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 percent of high school students have seriously considered suicide in the past 12 months.
[See: 9 Things to Do or Say When a Loved One Talks About Taking Their Life.]
The college years are also difficult. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration combed through data from 2008 to 2010 and found that 8.4 percent of full-time college students ages 18 to 22 and 8.2 percent of other young adults who were in college part time or not at all experienced a major depressive episode in the previous year. Among the estimated 9.3 million adults who reported having suicidal thoughts in the past year, college-age young adults (ages 18 to 25) had the highest percentage of serious thoughts about suicide (7.4 percent).
Many people think seniors are often depressed, but the CDC says the majority of older adults are not. Nevertheless, seniors are prone to depression, and life circumstances play an enormous role in that. Estimates of major depression in seniors living in the community range from less than 1 percent to about 5 percent, but they go up to 13.5 percent in those who require home health care and to 11.5 percent in senior hospital patients.
The Common Denominator Is Life Stress
Clearly, every age group is affected by depression. Still, certain times of life can make someone more susceptible. And they all tend to have one thing in common: change-related stress.
Children, of course, go through tremendous growth and change over the course of their youth. That has always been so, but recent societal changes may be behind the uptick in the numbers of depressed children. “Since the 1950s, when I grew up, people have become more enclosed in their homes,” says Carl Tishler, a psychologist and adjunct associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at The Ohio State University. “Kids don’t go outside any more. My mom pushed me out of the house and closed the door. We were constantly active.”
These days, it is harder to get kids out to play, he says, because parents are afraid. “There is a suspicion of others; that going to the playground is not always safe, and there is a suffering to that. Kids today are not getting the exercise we got as kids,” he says. Exercise has been proven to help prevent or lessen depression symptoms, so lack of activity may be a cause of increased depression in kids.
Another issue affecting children today is social media, which puts tremendous stress on a child’s developing self-image, and also makes bullying particularly easy.
The college years are stressful, of course, and make the late teens and early 20s a particularly vulnerable time. That’s been made worse lately, given uncertain economic times. “Huge numbers of young people in this day and age are moving back home after college, and they have expectations that don’t get met,” says Arthur Nezu, professor of psychology at Drexel University in Philadelphia. “That can be incredibly stressful. Then you also pair that with biology, and the fact that the brain doesn’t get fully formed until then, so there is a lot of turmoil.”
[See: Am I Just Sad — Or Actually Depressed?]
The Stresses of Adulthood
Adulthood is no walk in the park either, and certain life events are associated with depression. “With women between 25 and 44, the joy and stress of raising children is the most likely life pattern. Women with kids under age 5 and [who have] the primary responsibility for those children have very high rates of depression,” says Carol Landau, clinical professor of psychiatry and human behavior and of medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island. And later in adulthood, many in the so-called “Sandwich Generation” find themselves caring for children and their aging parents, which brings high levels of stress.
The senior years can be fraught as well. First come the retirement years, which cause major life disruptions. “Many seniors expect to love retirement, but when they get there they don’t really know what to do,” Nezu says. “They experience a major change in their roles. And the U.S. is not like other countries, where the older you get the more respect you get. I have been to Japan several times, and at big social events you have to wait for the oldest person until you can have a drink and say cheers. It is respectful of older people. Here [many seniors] no longer feel respected, they feel more like a burden.”
[See: 14 Ways Caregivers Can Care for Themselves.]
Depression may be more difficult to recognize in older adults. The National Institutes of Health says that sadness may not be the main symptom. Some may feel tired, have trouble sleeping or become irritable. They may also be confused or have attention problems, which can be mistaken for dementia or other brain disorders. And older adults typically have more medical conditions such as heart disease, stroke, or cancer, or are on medications for those conditions, both of which can cause depressive symptoms. Finally, the issue of grief comes into play most often with seniors. After losing a loved one, grief is normal. But grief that lasts for a long time may indicate depression.
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Are Some Age Groups More Prone to Depression Than Others? originally appeared on usnews.com
