Suicide in Late Life: Review and Commentary

Depression in late life: review and commentary.

Depression is perhaps the most frequent cause of emotional suffering in later life and significantly decreases quality of life in older adults. In recent years, the literature on late-life depression has exploded. Many gaps in our understanding of the outcome of late-life depression have been filled. Intriguing findings have emerged regarding the etiology of late-onset depression. The number of...

Late-life suicide.

Suicide rates for older people are increasing worldwide, thereby creating a major public health concern. There has been an absence of public policy and research interest in this area, although the needs are pressing and promise to be even more so. Besides the fact that a worldwide aging population means more older people, and thus more late-life suicides, the percentage of older people who kill...

Commentary: Lithium in Drinking Water and Suicide Mortality

Role of alcohol in late-life suicide.

Suicide is among the leading causes of death in the United States, ranking 10th to 12th annually, depending on the year. Rates of suicide increase markedly among Americans over age 75, especially among white men. After age 85, rates are >5-fold higher in this group than in the general population. The relationship between alcohol use and later-life suicide is complex and currently ill defined. S...

Reward signals, attempted suicide, and impulsivity in late-life depression.

IMPORTANCE—Suicide can be viewed as an escape from unendurable punishment at the cost of any future rewards. Could faulty estimation of these outcomes predispose to suicidal behavior? In behavioral studies, many of those who have attempted suicide misestimate expected rewards on gambling and probabilistic learning tasks.OBJECTIVES—To describe the neural circuit abnormalities that underlie disad...