Paper Title
New Coping Strategies with Depression in Residential Elderly
Abstract
Background: The aging of the population and the alert and stressful lifestyle make more and more elderly people reach the care of the state residential system. Entering such a system is often accompanied by different depressive symptoms with varying degrees of intensity
Methods: A lot of 58 elderly people from the residential center Arad Romania were taken into the study, making up the research lot. The BDI (Beck Depression Inventary) was used to determine the level of depressive symptoms intensity. After a first evaluation of depression, the elderly benefited from 12 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy and 12 counseling sessions from the social worker. The intervention was done in the team: psychologist-social worker The elderly were taught to use new strategies to cope with depression. After the sessions were completed, the intensity of the depressive symptoms was again measured with BDI.
Results: the results obtained from the intervention show that it is necessary that cognitive behavioral therapy and counseling have been beneficial for decreasing the intensity of the depressive symptoms in the elderly in the residential area.
Concluzii: it is necessary to implement some programs that will teach older different techniques of coping with depression to improve the quality of their life.
Keywords - Elderly, Residential Environment, Depression, Coping Strategies, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Counseling.