Depression recognition and treatment in long-term care: Future directions

The LTC patient population presents with medical, functional, and cognitive issues that complicate the recognition and treatment of depression. This is further complicated by the nature of LTC in which care is provided primarily by paraprofessional workers, who have limited knowledge of depression and its treatments. Not surprisingly, naturalistic studies evaluating the recognition and treatment of depression in LTC are quite dim and indicate that much more needs to be done to improve the care of this high-need population. Current efforts should be made towards further evaluation of treatment modalities for depression in LTC as well as towards the dissemination of already effective models of care within LTC environments. The integration of depression care into LTC through collaborative care models that have already shown to be effective in the treatment of other chronic conditions including depression in primary care might be particularly useful.