Overcoming Depression and Low Mood in Older Adults joins the bestselling Routledge Overcoming Series, which includes publications that have the seal of approval by the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and highly commended by the British Medical Association.
This workbook outlines how to use the Five Areas® model of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to equip older adults experiencing low mood or depression with key life skills to overcome these conditions.
Addressing the common challenges faced by older adults during times of low mood and depression, the book provides educational life skills and resources to increase mental wellbeing in the care home, day hospital, and social support networks of this population. Chapters cover topics such as understanding and changing behaviours; behavioural activation and tackling avoidance; noticing and changing extreme and unhelpful thoughts; rebalancing relationships; building assertiveness; and problem solving. Substantially featured throughout are worksheet resources using interactive questions that can be photocopied for use by practitioners with older adults or in their routine business as a therapist or health/social care practitioner.
This is a valuable text for any healthcare or mental health professional working with older adults including psychological therapists, social care workers, residential home staff, psychiatrists and practice nurse and health visiting staff. The workbook is also an approachable resource for older adults themselves.
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Professor Stephen Curran Part 1: Getting Started and Understanding why you feel as you do 1. Starting out ... and how to keep going if you feel stuck 2. Understanding why you feel as you do Part 2: Tackling problems and rebalancing relationships 3. Practical problem solving 4. Being assertive 5. Building relationships with your family and friends 6. Information for families and friends—how can you offer the best support? Part 3: Making changes to what you do 7. Doing things that make you feel better 8. Using exercise to improve how you feel 9. Helpful things you can do 10. Unhelpful things you can do Part 4: Noticing and changing unhelpful thinking 11. Noticing unhelpful thinking 12. Changing unhelpful thinking Part 5: Improving sleep, tackling alcohol and drug misuse, understanding and using antidepressant medication 13. Overcoming sleep problems 14. Harmful drinking and you 15. Understanding and using antidepressant medication Part 6: Planning for the future 16. Planning for the future
About the Author :
Award winning author Professor Chris Williams is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Glasgow, UK, and an Honorary Fellow and Past President of BABCP - the lead body for cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in the UK. He is a well-known writer, teacher and researcher and his work focuses on making CBT approaches accessible and usable. Discover more at www.llttf.com/evidence
Review :
‘It is now widely recognised that older adults should have access to a range of evidence-based interventions for depression and low mood. Professor Williams and colleagues have been at the forefront of advocating and developing effective tools to achieve this. The resources here provide staff and individuals direct access to expert-written life skills resources that can allow older adults to learn effective strategies they can use to make changes that can quite literally be life changing. Overcoming Depression and Low Mood in Older Adults provides a wide suite of resources that address all the most common areas of need of older adults and their carers. I warmly welcome and highly recommend this excellent set of resources.’
Stephen Curran, BSc (Hons), MB ChB, MMedSc, MRCPsych, PhD, Professor, trained in Leeds and was Lecturer in old age psychiatry at the University of Leeds until he took up his current post as Consultant in old age psychiatry in Wakefield, UK. He has published many peer view publications and nearly 20 books on depression, dementia and psychopharmacology in older people and more recently on medical management for doctors. He is co-author of Practical Psychiatry of Old Age (5th Edition).
