Abstract

This accessible and authoritative book provides an invaluable guide to identifying, treating and preventing depression in later life.

Jill Manthorpe and Steve Iliffe take a multidisciplinary approach and employ both medical and psycho-social models of depression. The medical model is used to identify symptoms, make diagnoses and work towards optimal treatment. Psycho-social perspectives provide insight into the scale and complexity of the condition and point to its social causes. The authors identify different levels of depression through in-depth analysis and consider the condition in relation to, but distinct from, dementia, psychosis and anxiety disorders, helping professionals to make the correct diagnosis. Supporting case studies show that depression, and the physical symptoms often linked to it, are amenable to treatment. The authors provide practical guidance for health and social care practitioners and suggest numerous coping strategies.

This comprehensive book is essential reading for health and social care practitioners working with older people, their carers and families.

Winner of the Health Care for the Elderly category of the 2006 BMA Medical Book Competition

'This is a very useful source text, easy to read , very thought provoking, and up-to-date.'

British Journal of Social Work
Overall, this is a very interesting text that reminds and refreshes experienced practitioners of the issues in identifying, recognizing and effectively treating and preventing depression in late life. For new practitioners and students, it effectively and clearly sets out crucial themes and issues for clinical practice. The text is easy to read and unthreatening in its language and format; clearly highlighting practice examples and signposting specific chapters relating to particular themes.
OTOP Newsletter
This book provides a clear, readable overview to this area and as such could be recommended as an introductory text for practitioners or as a resource for carers and sufferers.
PSIGE Newsletter
The book is an easy-read and well supported by `practice examples' that emphasise the complexity of real-life situations. It is generally well referenced and makes use of authoritative sources to support its recommendations.
Ageing and Society
Depression in later life is a guide to identifying, treating and preventing depression in later life…The authors provide practical guidance for health and social care practitioners and suggest numerous coping strategies. Depression in later life is for health and social care practitioners working with older people, their carers and families'.
Working with older people
Expertly written by a professor of social work and an academic general practitioner, this is a very accessible, focused and insightful book examining the complex issue of depression in older people. The positive message from the book encourages professionals to see depression as a disability, rather than a disease. It considers that practitioners should respond to the needs of those with depression taking a life course perspective, aiming to ameliorate their problems, rather than focusing only on seeking a cure... An excellent book recommended for all practitioners working with older people in all health and social care settings.
Journal of Community Nursing
This book takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the issue of depression in old age using a medical and psychological model. It defines different levels of depression and considers it alongside dementia, anxiety disorders and psychosis. It looks at causes and symptoms and shows how depression can be amenable to treatment'.
Ageing Matters
Manthorpe and Iliffe are careful to spell out not just the personal costs of depression and the medical treatments available for it, but also the effects on family and other caregivers of depression, and they discuss non-medical ways of both preventing and treating depression.
Metapsychology Online