Better recognize depression in old age

Project description

In nursing homes and general medical facilities, where older people are mainly cared for due to physical illnesses and the need for care, nursing and medical staff often lack the knowledge to diagnose and treat depressive syndromes. In this context, the routine use of screening procedures is recommended. However, the self-assessment questionnaires established with younger and middle-aged adults are not well suited to older adults. This is mainly due to the presence of physical multimorbidity and cognitive impairments, e.g. loss of sleep and appetite can also occur in old age without the presence of depression.

The Depression in Old Age Scale (DiA-S) (Heidenblut & Zank, 2010) was developed around 15 years ago to address this problem. However, there are groups of people who have problems completing or answering the DiA-S. These include people with mild cognitive impairment and incipient dementia, as they have increasing difficulty understanding written and spoken language. And if someone is dependent on the questions being read to them in order to answer them, hearing difficulties can make it difficult to answer correctly.

To counter these problems, a pantomime version of the DiA-S was developed under the auspices of the association "In Würde alt werden e.V.". An item is displayed on a computer or tablet one after the other, in three modes simultaneously: the written item, the item read aloud and a video with a pantomime representation of the item. This is intended to increase understanding of the item.

The aim of this project is to revise the current version of the DiA-S pantomime and to bring the app into a form that can be easily used in a medical and nursing context. To this end, the scientific quality criteria of the DiA-S-Pantomime will also be examined.

In the long term, the project should help to better recognize depression in old age and then treat it at an earlier stage.

Focal points of the project

• Further development of the DiA-S-Pantomime app
• Evaluation of the DiA-S pantomime (validity, reliability) in older people (65-80 years and 80+ years) with different degrees of depression (no depression, subsyndromal, mild, moderate, severe depression)

Funding is provided by the G. u. I. Leifheit Foundation, cooperation partner is the association "In Würde alt werden e.V." (https://www.in-wuerde-alt-werden-ev.de)