Medication May Help Older Adults With Anxiety Disorder To Some Extent

According to research, in older adults with generalized anxiety disorder, use of drug escitalopram has provided relief and improvement in anxiety symptoms to some extent.

Even though overall benefits of using this particular drug for anxiety disorder are diminished because of non-adherence of the drug by some patients, drug escitalopram has provided some improvement in anxiety symptoms.

With certain anxiety related symptoms like fatigues and sleep problems, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is most common mental health disorder in older adults that is characterized by chronic difficult to control worry and anxiety.

The prevalence of generalized anxiety disorder is much higher in primary care adults when compared with community dwelling older adults.

As there is no effective treatment for this particular anxiety disorder, GAD has become an increasing economic and human burden for most of the older adults.

For younger adults with GAD, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are effective, but when it comes to older adults, there is very little data exists related to successful outcomes of using SSRIs for the treatment of GAD.

According to study done by Eric J. Lenze, M.D., of Washington University, St. Louis, and colleagues, the cumulative occurrence of response with escitalopram treatment is higher.

Read more at ScienceDaily