Feeling blue at the end of life: Trajectories of depressive symptoms from a distance-to-death perspective.

Abstract

This article examines the end-of-life development of depressive symptoms and characterizes prototypical groups following the same depressive symptoms development. We modeled time-to-death-related trajectories of depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale), applying a latent class growth analysis to deceased older adults from the English Longitudinal Study of Aging (Waves 1 to 5; NTime 1 (T1) = 2,219; MAge(T1) = 73.9 years, SDAge(T1) = 9.4 years; 51% male, 1% non-White). Four prototypical trajectories of depressive symptoms were identified at the end of life: a stably nondepressed group (31.2%); 2 groups with an exponential terminal symptom increase, of which 1 was nondepressed and 1 low depressed (8.3% and 38.4%, respectively); and a stably depressed group (22.2%). Using a combination of growth curve models and individual level and slope values as predictor variables showed that individuals suffering from increasing sensory, mobility, or overall health problems or decreasing quality of life were more likely to have an increase in symptoms of depression in their last years of life. Men were more likely to be stably nondepressed and women more likely to be chronically depressed. We conclude that a group-based analysis of end-of-life depressive symptoms is useful in adding to the understanding of distance-to-death psychology at large as well as pointing to preventive and intervention strategies when it comes to late-life depressive mood. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Pathways to death: The co-occurrence of physical and mental health in the last years of life

“…Research has only relatively recently started to examine longitudinal trajectories of change in physical and mental health at the end of life, usually focusing on only one health dimension (Diegelmann, Schilling, and Wahl 2016;Gill et al 2010;Wolf 2016). A multidimensional perspective on end-of-life health trajectories is important to assess the variants of 'successful aging' and their temporal dynamics in order to give a more complete picture of individual aging experiences (Kok et al 2015;Rowe and Kahn 1987).…”

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