YOU ARE NOW CONNECTED TO THE TOXLINE (1981 FORWARD, NON-ROYALTY) FILE. ==SUICIDE IN THE ELDERLY== 1 AUTHOR Chiu HF AUTHOR Lam LC AUTHOR Pang AH AUTHOR Leung CM AUTHOR Wong CK TITLE Attempted suicide by Chinese elderly in Hong Kong. SOURCE Gen Hosp Psychiatry; VOL 18, ISS 6, 1996, P444-7 ABSTRACT There is little information on attempted suicide in the elderly, especially among Chinese populations. Fifty-five elderly with suicidal attempts seen in a psychiatric unit in Hong Kong over a 2 1/2 year period were studied. The risk of suicidal attempt remained high after age 75 and only declined after 85. In contrast to western societies, self-injury was more common than self-poisoning. About half of the patients suffered from a mood disorder but very few had dementia. At follow-up 1 1/2-4 years after the suicidal attempt, the rate of repetition was 3.6% and the rate of completed suicide was 5.5%. 2 AUTHOR Waern M AUTHOR Beskow J AUTHOR Runeson B AUTHOR Skoog I TITLE High rate of antidepressant treatment in elderly people who commit suicide SOURCE Br. Med. J.; VOL 313 ISS Nov 2 1996, P1118, (REF 5) ABSTRACT IPA COPYRIGHT: ASHP A study evaluating antidepressant treatment among 75 subjects, ages 65-97 yr, who committed suicide in a single region of Sweden during an 18 month period is reported; postmortem blood levels of antidepressants and medical records were used to establish diagnosis and treatment. Fifty-one subjects had a documented history of treatment for affective illness, and 36 had had such treatment in the 6 months before their suicide. Eight different antidepressants had been prescribed in 34 cases, lithium in 4, and electroconvulsive therapy in 4. Four additional people gave positive test results for antidepressants at necropsy, but prescription information was unavailable. Three more men had consulted the psychiatric services within 3 wk of their suicide but antidepressants were not prescribed. Blood levels of 4 antidepressants were in the range associated with overdosage. It was concluded that, once diagnosed, depression in the elderly must be managed with persistence. 5 AUTHOR Fernandez Fernandez MP AUTHOR Hinojal Fonseca R TITLE [Suicide in the elderly] SOURCE Actas Luso Esp Neurol Psiquiatr Cienc Afines; VOL 19, ISS 5, 1991, P252-7 ABSTRACT Being the suicide a conduct very old, it's at present a problem with the epidemic characteristics and it's for this question that it has aroused a great interest. But, we have observed that the interest is only about the suicide youngest persons. They are little the factors and tendencies suicides studies in years old persons ("third age"), though also the suicide in years old persons is augmenting. We have analyzed 74 suicides in greater 60 years old persons occurred in our community. We have studied several epidemiological factors: sex, age, civil condition, the suicide mechanism, place where it's occurred, hour, day, month, the pathological antecedents and the other case antecedents. 6 AUTHOR Schmidtke A AUTHOR Weinacker B TITLE [Suicide rates, suicide methods and uncertain cause of death in the elderly] SOURCE Z Gerontol; VOL 24, ISS 1, 1991, P3-11 ABSTRACT The incidence of suicidal behavior among elderly people is difficult to determine, as it is probable that many suicides in this age group escape detection. This is attributable to the high incidence of "indirect" suicidal acts and the difficulty of detecting suicidal poisoning among elderly people, because deaths involving such methods are especially liable to be mistakenly classified under other categories of causes of death. Using the available statistics that record the causes of death for persons aged over 60 years in the Federal Republic of Germany, we examined co-variations between suicide figures and the occurrence of other categories of causes of death. The suicide rates exhibited a progressive increase with age for such age groups as a whole. However, the trends observed for individual 5-year age groups differentiated according to sex showed considerable differences, with the suicide figures increasing for some groups, but decreasing for others. Furthermore, these alterations were also found to be substantially dependent on the time periods selected. In general, the male/female suicide ratio altered to the disadvantage of women; increase in the suicide figures for women over 60 years exceeded the growth in the proportion of the population accounted for by this group. The latest available figures indicate that women over 60 years now commit 48% of all female suicides.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS) 7 AUTHOR Ekeberg O AUTHOR Aargaard I TITLE [Suicide and attempted suicide among the elderly] SOURCE Tidsskr Nor Laegeforen; VOL 111, ISS 5, 1991, P562-4 ABSTRACT The suicide rate in Norway among persons older than 15 years has increased from 10/100,000 during the period 1965-67 to 18/100,000 during the period 1985-87. Attention has been focused in particular on the higher rates among young people, and not so much on the rates among the elderly. The suicide rate for males older than 70 years increased by 51% to 27/100,000 in the 20 year period, and is now at the same level as among the age group 20-69 years. The suicide rate for females older than 70 years increased by 68% to 7/100,000 during the same period. The suicide rate for females varies more with age, and is highest (15/100,000) in the age group 50-59. In 1989, 36 patients (75% females) older than 70 years were admitted to the Medical Department. Ullev~al sykehus for self-poisoning. This is about twice as many as four years before. The annual rates of self-poisonings were 143/100,000 for females and 93/100,000 for males. The suicidal intention was much higher (61% suicidal attempts) among patients older than 70 years than among persons below this age (15%). In 44% of the cases the main problem preceding the self-poisoning was loneliness and isolation. The toxic agent was usually (56%) benzodiazepine hypnotics. The findings indicate that the suicide rates among the elderly in Norway will continue to increase, at least in the cities, where loneliness and isolation is an increasing problem. 8 AUTHOR Wiernikowski A AUTHOR Lipowska-Teutsch A AUTHOR Czeczotko B AUTHOR Bras A TITLE [Chemical poisoning in suicide attempts by the elderly] SOURCE Folia Med Cracov; VOL 31, ISS 1-2, 1990, P25-34 ABSTRACT The problem of suicidal attempts in which the chemical substances are used is very important for clinical toxicology. Suicide subjects make up 61 to 68% of all hospitalized patients with acute poisoning in Toxicological Centers in Poland. And mainly the young not the old are involved in these suicidal attempts. In the Toxicological Clinic in Krakow in period 1980-1986 138 patients (81 women and 57 men) above the age of 60 residing in Province of Krakow were hospitalized since while committing suicide by chemical substances, they got poisoned. Most of the patients (90%) were poisoned by a single drug or mixed ones; frequently by Reladorm (31.5%), by benzodiazepines alone (31%) and by barbiturates (21%), less frequently by chlorpromazine drugs, tricyclic antidepressants and cardiac drugs which were only concomitant toxins. The rest of the studied patients (10%) were poisoned with organic solvents (4 patients), hydrochloric acid (4 patients), organophosphate pesticides (3 patients). In single cases it was seed dressing T (thiuram), carbon monoxide or ethanol poisoning. The case of ethyl alcohol poisoning was discussed and the patient who ingested it commit suicide died. 14 patients died (10%) and the lowest mortality rate was in 61-70-year--old patients and it was evidently higher for the younger patients. The causes of the patients' death as well as psychological and psychiatric aspect of the suicides were discussed. Some conclusions concerning prophylaxis of suicidal poisonings in the elderly were drawn.