I recently read about an elderly couple from West Allis who made a suicide pact. Virginia Wilcox suffered from Alzheimer’s and her husband Paul was her primary caregiver.
Having been married for 48 years, they were entirely devoted to one another. Apparently, it all caught up with them, because in May of this year, they got into their van parked beside their home and took an overdose of medications. They were found two days later by a restaurant waitress who often waited on them.
“They were like family,” said Samantha Peaslee the waitress who discovered the bodies of the Wilcox couple.
As I’ve indicated in previous articles, more than 10,000 baby boomers are hitting the age of 70 every day. This is a phenomenon that will continue for the next 19 years. And already, more than 5 million Americans suffer from dementia.
Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia destroy memory and other mental functions, including the capacity to carry out simple tasks. The prevalence of Alzheimer’s and dementia among baby boomers is expected to explode in about 25 years.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association projection, 10 million of these baby boomers will develop dementia. Of those who reach the age of 85, nearly one in two will get it. Alzheimer’s/dementia is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. It kills more people than breast and prostate cancer combined. (alz.org/boomers).
Older adults make up 12 percent of the U.S. population but account for 18 percent of all suicide deaths, according to statistics cited by the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). This is an alarming statistic, as the elderly (especially those over 85) are the fastest-growing segment of the population, making the issue of later-life suicide a major public health priority.
In 2014, the annual suicide rate for persons over the age of 65 was 15.6 per 100,000 individuals, according to statistics from the federal Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion; this number increases for those aged 75 to 84, with 17.5 suicide deaths per every 100,000 and 19.3 for those over age 85.
AAMFT adds that elder suicide could be under-reported by 40 percent or more, as many “silent suicides” – deaths from overdoses, self-starvation or dehydration – and other “accidents” might or might not be intentional.
AAMFT also points out that elderly have a high rate of completing suicide because they use methods like firearms, hanging and drowning and that double suicides involving spouses or partners occur most frequently among the aged.
Older adults usually do not seek treatment for mental health problems, so family and friends can play an important role in prevention that mental health professionals and other caregivers sometimes cannot.
What can we do?
First of all we need to know the risks of later life suicide. Simply stated high risk of elder suicide occurs when a person is of increasing age, a white male and divorced. According to AAMFT, a psychiatric diagnosis such as depression is often associated with suicide later in life. Other contributing factors include misuse of alcohol, medical illness, dysfunctional families, financial and physical pain as well as loss and grief.
Options for prevention can contain various strategies, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
Friends and family of older adults need to be observant to identify signs of suicidal thoughts and take appropriate follow- up actions to prevent them from acting on these thoughts. Suicidal thoughts are often a symptom of depression and should always be taken seriously.
Passive suicidal thoughts include thoughts of being “better off dead.” They are not necessarily associated with increased risk for suicide, but are a sign of significant distress and should be addressed immediately.
If someone you know has a suicide plan with intent to act, you should not leave them alone—make sure to stay with them until emergency mental health services are in place. A timely and appropriate intervention can prevent suicide, and addressing issues sooner rather than later often results in better treatment outcomes.
Evidence shows that most elderly suicide victims visit their physician shortly before dying
Health insurance costs should never be a barrier to treatment. Visit the Medicare QuickCheck® on MyMedicareMatters.org to learn more about all of the mental health services available to you through Medicare. Another resource is the Veterans Affairs Department’s crisis hotline which can be found at www.veteranscrisisline.net.
Educational programs for primary health care providers on the identification and treatment of late-life depression can be a vital component of lowering suicide rates. Another realistic preventive strategy is to limit access to firearms and reduce the use of sedative medications.
As a public health problem, elder suicide will continue as the baby boomer folks enter their sunshine years. Community based mental health funding must be marshaled to reduce this preventable tragedy for our elders.
Instead, the task of trying to recognize elderly depression and encourage treatment falls largely to primary care physicians and, of course, to family members, who should always take suicidal talk seriously. When a depressed and hopeless relative commits suicide, the family must cope not only with grief but often with guilt and unanswered questions.
– Stephen Rudolph