-
- Nazneen Hyder Noorani and Marcos Montagnini.
- Division of Geriatrics, VA Medical Center Zablocki, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
- J Palliat Med. 2007 Apr 1; 10 (2): 458-64.
AbstractClinically significant depression is a common psychiatric disorder in patients with advanced and terminal diseases. Depression is often unrecognized and untreated and it causes major suffering to patients and families. Having adequate knowledge and skills to properly recognize depression in patients with advanced illnesses is essential for providing comprehensive end-of-life care. The objective of this paper is to review the key elements of the assessment of depression in palliative care patients. We also discuss the challenges of making the diagnosis, review the risk factors associated with depression and describe the features of the most common assessment tools that have been studied in this population. Finally, we highlight how to differentiate depression from normal grief, as the overlap between these conditions imposes a diagnostic challenge.
Notes
Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
- Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as
*italics*,_underline_or**bold**. - Superscript can be denoted by
<sup>text</sup>and subscript<sub>text</sub>. - Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines
1. 2. 3., hyphens-or asterisks*. - Links can be included with:
[my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com) - Images can be included with:
 - For footnotes use
[^1](This is a footnote.)inline. - Or use an inline reference
[^1]to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document[^1]: This is a long footnote..