HOW ARE ELDERS COPING?

By Alice Park

An alarming number of the residents in assisted-living facilities are suffering from mental illness, according to a new study by Indiana University. In a four-state survey of 2,100 seniors living in these increasingly popular elder-care facilities, physicians found that fully two-thirds of the residents exhibited behaviors ranging from aimless wandering and hoarding to more serious signs of dementia, depression and psychosis. Such symptoms are thought to be far more common in those living in nursing homes, who suffer from more serious medical problems. Similar signs of mental instability are found in 50% to 80% of those residents. --By Alice Park