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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My mother is 87 and has had major depressive episodes her whole adult life, but once antidepressants (SSRIs) became widely available she stayed well for very long stretches. But now that she's become elderly the major depression and extreme anxiety is back and is driving all of the declines in her health. An episode in 2022 lasted 10 months...she lost 40+ pounds, stopped driving and moved into a senior living facility, which finally broke the depression and she became her usual self again. Now we're 6 month in to another episode and nothing is helping. She had insomnia, but 3 months ago she started sleeping well again...but her anxiety and depression are as terrible as they ever have been. We've been trying everything - SSRIs, therapy, exercise/physical therapy - while treating all the physical health symptoms that one after another turn out to be caused by her anxiety/depression, such as issues swallowing/eating, tremors, weakness, etc. She doesn't have dementia although at this rate she's going to ruin her health until everything starts shutting down. Her physical health has always been good...she only takes medication for her blood pressure and assorted vitamin supplements (vitamin D, B vitamins, magnesium) and famotidine for reflux and occasionally takes Nexium for short periods when her anxiety makes the reflux a lot worse.

Please let me know if you have dealt with this with your elderly parents. Our family, especially my siblings, are continuously stressed out and are getting to the point where we are getting very angry at all of this self-inflicted misery. We have some childhood/young adult trauma from dealing with my mother's depressive episodes as well.

Does anyone have any recommendations for what to do when medications stop working? I've read about everything from TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) to electroshock therapy to esketamine (ketamine nasal spray)...but I'm not sure if any of this makes sense at her age. She honestly is likely to die from depression if we can't find a solution, but increasingly I'm wondering if that is the solution since she seems to be so invested in it. She actually is not suicidal - I think a lot of this is anxiety about aging and dying - but honestly the end result IS going to be dying if we can't break this cycle.[/quote]

The end result is dying for everyone, depressed or not.  Your mom has already lived a good long life that will end soon.  Her kids have done well by her.  Maybe you'll be lucky and be both undepressed and long lived.[/quote]

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