Research progress of clinical features and therapy of late life depression

Late life depression (LLD) has become one of the most common mental and psychological diseases in the elderly. The clinical manifestations of LLD patients are complex and varied, and often accompanied by physical diseases. Clinicians should actively guide the elderly population to use the patient health questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2) self-rating scale to screen depressive symptoms, comprehensively evaluate the positive population combined with physical symptoms, and make definitive diagnosis according to the international classification of diseases-10 (ICD-10) diagnostic criteria, in order to offer the foundation for timely treatment of the LLD patients. Psychotherapy and drug therapy are first-line treatments for the patients, and the severe patients can be treated with electroconvulsive therapy. Meanwhile, the patients should focus on the treatment of physical illnesses and improvement of lifestyles. This article reviews the clinical features, screening, evaluation, diagnosis and therapy progress of LLD, and provides reference for the integrated management and prevention of LLD.