SHORTS: Depression in Older Adults - Screening and Referral #YouCouldSaveALife

SHORTS: Depression in Older Adults - Screening and Referral #YouCouldSaveALife

Vieira E, Brown E, Raue P. Depression in Older Adults: Screening and Referral. Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy, 2014;37(1), 24-30.

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23619921

PHQ-2 Tips:

Link to PHQ-2: http://www.cqaimh.org/pdf/tool_phq2.pdf

Patients with a PHQ-2 score of 2 or 3 (depending on the patient population) should be referred for further evaluation.

Scoring involves adding the results from the two items. The PHQ-2 with a cutoff score of 3 has 87% sensitivity and 78% specificity for depression

The following suggested information content, organizational format, and example come from "Nuts and Bolts: Organization for Depression Case Presentation"

• Identify yourself, your place or employment and your relationship with the patient
• Identify Patient: I am calling you about your patient Mr./Ms. __________whom I suspect has depression.
• Age, Marital Status, Race, Gender
• Current Symptoms (duration, pervasiveness)
• Suicidal Ideation
• Psychiatric History (if any)
• Psychosocial (living situation, social support, stressors)
• Medical illness and medications (dose for psycho-tropics)
• Recommendation for further evaluation by physician or Mental Health (MH) specialist.

Assessment and management of depression in older adults can be conceptualized in the following 4 steps:

Step 1: Accurate depression recognition and screening is needed. But assessment is only the FIRST step in caring for depression

Step 2: Depression-related information needs to be conveyed to the patient's physician or mental health specialist for further evaluation

Step 3: Depression treatment needs to be initiated or adjusted as indicated

Step 4: Ongoing monitoring of symptoms

Questions or comments? Find me here:

Twitter: @jdaniels_DPT

Facebook: Joe Daniels

Email: jd2012@nova.edu

Enjoy!

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