Jan 23, 2020
You’ve probably heard patients say, “Of course I’m depressed, I’m dying. Wouldn’t you be?” This is a fundamental question - to what extent are depressive symptoms “normal” at the end of life? To what extent are they maladaptive, a fancy word for psychological conditions that have a negative impact on your life. In this week’s GeriPal podcast we talked with Elissa Kozlov, a psychologist-researcher at Rutgers, and Claire Ankuda, a palliative care physician-researcher at Mt. Sinai about their JAGS paper describing the epidemiology of depressive symptoms in the last year of life. This was an interesting conversation, as Drs. Kozlov and Ankuda are pushing the boundaries of how we conceptualize depressive symptoms near the end of life. Their work suggests that depression is far more common than we suspect clinically. And they chose a great song - Hurt as arranged by Johnny Cash (not the Nine Inch Nails original). Enjoy! -@AlexSmithMD