Two Weeks Notice

     Last week I attended a meeting at the home care agency where I work.  There is a new service available for seniors in our area with mental health problems. The most common issues for the aging are depression and anxiety, but it is not unheard of for people 60 and over to be diagnosed for the first time with ADHD or bipolar disorders. Suicide is also fairly common among the elderly. As home health care providers, we are in a unique position to observe behaviors that even family might miss on a short visit.  I am glad to know there is help available because I have already been involved with seniors in mental health crises.
    At the blood pressure clinic I have conducted at Sykes pharmacy for many years, many of the clients I see are "regulars", either because they come to Sykes everyday anyway or because having their blood pressure read is part of their Wednesday routine. One of these sweet seniors was "Dee".  At 90 years old, having outlived so many of her friends, she sometimes questioned if she had outlived her purpose. But when her statements became increasingly and consistently hopeless, I knew I needed to do more than pray for her.  Since she was not a client, I didn't have the option of reporting her to my supervisor, so I told the pharmacist who had cared for her for many years.  Her doctor was informed and her family moved her closer to them. Since I have not yet seen her obituary, I assume she is okay.
     Another such encounter was with a man who had been moved to the mental hospital from a nursing home, where he had stopped eating and refused to let his wife leave their shared room.  The nurses had to practically force feed him, and some of the other patients thought he should have been left alone to starve with his dignity intact.  Two weeks later his antidepressants started working and his appetite for both food and life was restored.  After his return to the nursing home, he came back with his little band and played music for the mental health patients.  I should know, I was one of them.
    There is no dignity in letting someone die under the distortion of depression, a disease where nothing is as it seems.  Such misplaced respect for his dignity would have let him die needlessly days short of a recovery.  Many of the seniors who commit suicide have visited their doctor a few weeks before, and many only 24 hours before their suicide.  Whether we are caregivers or just people who care, it is our responsibility--to notice.