Depression Triples Danger For Elderly

A new finding, that depression among men and women 65 and older nearly triples the risk of their having a stroke, underscores the need to treat depression in the elderly - not just to raise their spirits, but also to better protect them against other diseases.

The study of more than 10,000 elderly men and women, all told by their doctors that they had hypertension, and all with blood pressure over 160/95 or on medication for hypertension, found that over a three-year period those with symptoms of depression suffered strokes at up to 2.7 times the rate of those being treated for hypertension but without depression.<