When people may think about reminisson, we often think about the end of a diagnosis or the fading of clear symptoms. When a treatment is considered to be successful, people aim for an hopeful ending where there are no worries of the illness coming back. Despite successful treatments for depression, many people of older age have a tendency to fall into relapse and be diagnosed with depression again. It can be said that “reminisson doesn’t mean recovery”, there is a greater likelihood that it’s not over. This concept has caused many scientists to examine the cause of why people whose lives have become normal again after depression relapse back into the same stance. The two studies focus on what happens after treatment ends and the older people have been cleared of depression.
In the article, Predictors of Recurrence in Remitted Late-Life Depression, by Yi Deng, Douglas R McQuoid, Guy G Potter, David C Steffens, Kimberly Albert, Meghan Riddle , John L Beyer, and Warren D Taylor focus on adults who have successfully been treated for depression. Upon their study, more than half the people relapsed and went back into depression. It had been shown that the factors that led to the recurrence was human level issues such as “stress, functional disability, low social support, and sadness” rather than brain scans or cognitive tests. It was meant to show that there may be emotions that are felt in one’s daily life that aren't shown on brain scans. The researchers had studied a larger group of predictors that included demographics and brain imaging data. They were able to conclude that taking cognitive test scores don‘t play a role in being able to predict who will relapse or not because the factors that mattered were related to human nature and actions. These factors don’t show up on blood tests or brain scans, the higher the levels of these human related factors, the higher the chances of relapse. Even something known as perceived stress which is a feeling of being overwhelmed caused to be a stronger predictor.
Relating to this, a study, Reconsidering remission in recurrent late-life depression: clinical presentation and phenotypic predictors of relapse following successful antidepressant treatment, by Warren DD Taylor, Meryl A Butters Damian Elson, Sarah M Szymkowicz, Kyle Jennette, Kiara Baker, Brianca Renfro, Angie Georgaras, Robert Krafty, Carmen Andreescu, and Olusola Ajilore aims to focus on the comparison between older adults in remission from depression and matched them to 69 year olds without a history of depression. They overlooked these individuals for two years and found out that nearly 44% of those in remission had relapsed, reinforcing what had been found in the 2018 study. The researchers had also taken a look at the broader set of variables both psychological and clinical. They, too, set aside the cause to be biological and common predictors were functional disability, low social support, or negative thoughts. The talk had discussed how despite meeting the criteria for remission, many of the participants still relapsed due to vulnerabilities.
Both of the studies force us to analyze the way we treat older adults for depression. It can be said that symptom reduction isn’t effective as many individuals tend to relapse after remission. There needs to be a model that can support the idea of lifestyle reconstruction, where functional independence is achieved and stronger social support is provided along with teaching these individuals how to manage stress.
References
Deng, Y., McQuoid, D. R., Potter, G. G., Steffens, D. C., Albert, K., Riddle, M., Beyer, J. L., & Taylor, W. D. (2018). Predictors of recurrence in remitted late-life depression. Depression and anxiety, 35(7), 658–667. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22772
Taylor, W. D., Butters, M. A., Elson, D., Szymkowicz, S. M., Jennette, K., Baker, K., Renfro, B., Georgaras, A., Krafty, R., Andreescu, C., & Ajilore, O. (2025). Reconsidering remission in recurrent late-life depression: clinical presentation and phenotypic predictors of relapse following successful antidepressant treatment. Psychological medicine, 1–12. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291724003246
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