BEREAVEMENT AND LATE-LIFE DEPRESSION - GRIEF AND ITS COMPLICATIONS INTHE ELDERLY

Spousal bereavement is a common event in later life and, not infrequen tly, an important cause of psychiatric and medical morbidity. Depressi on (along with suicide), anxiety, substance abuse, and symptoms of ''c omplicated'' grief are among the more important psychiatric sequelae o f spousal bereavement. They may represent, in paa, forms of abnormal r eaction to the stress of loss and the challenges of adaption to becomi ng widowed. This paper summarizes current knowledge about the clinical phenomenology of the psychiatric sequelae to late-life attachment ber eavment, some of the hypothesized antecedents of abnormal stress respo nse to bereavement, psychobiologic correlates of bereavement-related d epression, and the long-term course (including preliminary evidence on response to treatment with psychotherapy and antidepressant medicatio n).