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Anxiety disorders in older adults: a comprehensive review†

TLDR
Prevalence and symptom expression of anxiety disorders in late life, as well as risk factors, comorbidity, cognitive decline, age of onset, and treatment efficacy for older adults are reviewed.
Abstract
This review aims to address issues unique to older adults with anxiety disorders in order to inform potential changes in the DSM-V. Prevalence and symptom expression of anxiety disorders in late life, as well as risk factors, comorbidity, cognitive decline, age of onset, and treatment efficacy for older adults are reviewed. Overall, the current literature suggests: (a) anxiety disorders are common among older age individuals, but less common than in younger adults; (b) overlap exists between anxiety symptoms of younger and older adults, although there are some differences as well as limitations to the assessment of symptoms among older adults; (c) anxiety disorders are highly comorbid with depression in older adults; (d) anxiety disorders are highly comorbid with a number of medical illnesses; (e) associations between cognitive decline and anxiety have been observed; (f) late age of onset is infrequent; and (g) both pharmacotherapy and CBT have demonstrated efficacy for older adults with anxiety. The implications of these findings are discussed and recommendations for the DSM-Vare provided, including extending the text section on age-specific features of anxiety disorders in late life and providing information about the complexities of diagnosing anxiety disorders in older adults. Depression and Anxiety 27:190–211, 2010. r 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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Canadian clinical practice guidelines for the management of anxiety, posttraumatic stress and obsessive-compulsive disorders

TL;DR: These guidelines were developed by Canadian experts in anxiety and related disorders through a consensus process based on global impression of efficacy, effectiveness, and side effects, using a modified version of the periodic health examination guidelines.
Journal Article

Depression and anxiety.

TL;DR: The review of literature presents the conclusions of several meta-analyses that have reviewed psychosocial interventions for late-life depression and anxiety, and intervention studies concerning the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal therapy, reminiscence therapy, and alternative therapies with depressed and/or anxious older adults are reviewed.
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Benzodiazepine Use in the United States

TL;DR: More vigorous clinical interventions supporting judicious benzodiazepine use may be needed to decrease rates of long-term benzodiazine use in older adults.
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Social Network Type and Subjective Well-being in a National Sample of Older Americans

TL;DR: Social network type was found to be associated with each of the well-being indicators after adjusting for demographic and health confounders and can serve as a basis for risk assessment as well as a means for determining the efficacy of interventions.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Depression and generalized anxiety disorder - Cumulative and sequential comorbidity in a birth cohort followed prospectively to age 32 years

TL;DR: Challenging the prevailing notion that generalized anxiety usually precedes depression and eventually develops into depression, these findings show that the reverse pattern occurs almost as often.
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Anxiety and Depression in Later Life: Co-Occurrence and Communality of Risk Factors

TL;DR: Although high levels of comorbidity between major depressive Disorder and anxiety disorders were found, comparing risk factors associated with pure major depressive disorder and pure anxiety disorders revealed more differences than similarities.
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Anxiety disorders in later life: a report from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam.

TL;DR: The prevalence and risk factors of anxiety disorders in the older (55–85) population of The Netherlands are studied to find out if older people are more likely to suffer from anxiety disorders.
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Amygdala Responses to Emotionally Valenced Stimuli in Older and Younger Adults

TL;DR: Both older and younger adults showed greater activation in the amygdala for emotional than for neutral pictures; however, for older adults, seeing positive pictures led to greater amygdala activation than seeing negative pictures, whereas this was not the case for younger adults.
Journal ArticleDOI

Gender and age differences in the prevalence of specific fears and phobias

TL;DR: Fear of flying increased and fear of injections decreased as a function of age in women but not in men, indicating specific fears and phobias are heterogeneous with respect to sex and age distribution.
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