Aging September 12, 2007
Posted by a2me in Thoughts.trackback
Recently on Fresh Air (NPR), there’s an interview of Charles Reynolds who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine about depression in the elderly, and it makes me wonder whether we humans have been pushing longevity too far.
Body and mind have evolved to function well up to the certain period of time, appropriate to an ecologically expected longevity. But with a rapid advance in medicine and medical technology in recent history (a mere blink, considering the history of Homo sapiens), we are now living way longer than what would have been expected by out body and mind.
The same thing happens to zoo animals. As they live longer to the old age that is impossible in the wild, many of them are experiencing symptoms we find in old people such as arthritis, back pain etc.
The depression discussed in the show could be the result of some changes in neurochemistry as other physiological changes accompanying aging, since many of the patients, as the professor mentions in the show, did not have any incidence of depression when they were younger.
Or they could just be that human’s psyche and mentality have not evolved to deal with living so long. In one interview, E.O Wilson said he did not want to go to heaven and live forever because human’s mind was not built for eternity.
Umm… Good point.
Also, from a really simple poit of view, very old people can get depression because their health is failing, they are no longer able to do/enjoy things like they used to, their brains don’t function well (old people can be very forgetful). To add to all these, loneliness (esp for old people in western countries) can easily make people depressed.