Elderly Relationships

The most interesting dynamic to observe between my Puerto Rican grandmother and grandfather is how they bicker. They seem so opposite to one another that I can't imagine a time in their lives where they would have wanted to marry each other. In fact, their overt dislike of each other was even clear to me as a child--so much so that I would ask my mother if my grandmother and grandfather's marriage had been arranged and then that would explain why they never got along. She assured me, however, that this was not the case, and that they simply rarely saw eye to eye.

As they've both grown older, and I have as well, I've taken greater notice of their relationship's dynamic. My grandmother is a social butterfly. She takes line-dancing class, volunteers, loves to shop and go out to lunch with her friends and family, hosts several family dinners, babysits all the grandchildren, etc. My grandfather is the COMPLETE opposite. He literally spends the entirety of his day in the guest bedroom of their tiny house. He sits in the near-dark, shades drawn, and watched either the news or golf on TV. On a rare day, he'll take a walk down the block to break up the hours he spends in front of the the television, but after 5 minutes he returns home and continues watching. 

This infuriates my grandmother of course, and she doesn't even bother to try and get him to join her, entertain her, interact with her. She simply tells everyone that he's in his room--code for the guest bedroom--and she doesn't bother him. 

I've long tried to figure out my grandfather. But the solution my mother provides is that he's depressed. Ever since he retired he feels like he's lost his sense of purpose. Which is understandable. My grandfather grew up in the mountains of Puerto Rico. He was self-taught and began working, earning money for his family, when he was 8 years old. And he never stopped, not until he was 68 years old and retired from his job with the state. 

In class we've talked a bit about elderly depression and the factors that go into that--illness, loneliness, purposelessness, nursing home, anxiety, impending death. All of those are reason to feel depressed, but I wish there was more ways for the elderly to treat their depression. It seems like therapy and anti-depression studies are focused more on young adult and adults, not the elderly. It seems like people are trying to cure or treat depression in those age groups except for the elderly. So I did some research about ways to treat elderly depression. Here are the links, and they offer some really strong points, I just wish more people had access to them...

Medscape - information on how anti-depressants affect common medications that the elderly take, statistics on elderly depression, advice on medical treatment

HealthyPlace - positive effects of exercise on combating elderly depression

WebMD - how treating depression in elderly doesn't just make the mind healthier, but apparently makes elderly bodies healthier