https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/health/anxiety-screening-…
**Health Panel Recommends Anxiety Screening for All Adults Under 65**
**The guidance comes as Americans are coping with illness, isolation and loss from the pandemic, as well as other stressors like inflation and rising crime.**
**By Emily Baumgaertner, The New York Times, Sept. 20, 2022**
**A panel of medical experts, called the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, on Tuesday recommended for the first time that doctors screen all adult patients under 65 for anxiety, guidance that highlights the extraordinary stress levels that have plagued the United States since the start of the pandemic....**
**From August 2020 to February 2021, the percentage of adults with recent symptoms of an anxiety or a depressive disorder increased to 41.5 percent from 36.4 percent, according to one study cited by the task force. ...**
**The task force panel did not extend its screening recommendations to patients 65 and older. It said there was no clear evidence regarding the effectiveness of screening tools in older adults because anxiety symptoms are similar to normal signs of aging, such as fatigue and generalized pain. ...**
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Can the incidence of anxiety and depression that are bad enough to be diagnosed as a psychiatric disorder really 4 out of 10 people? That’s pretty shocking.
Not to mention that the task force thinks that being over 65 $uck$ so bad that there’s no point screening for anxiety and depression – maybe they think that all older adults are just normally miserable?
Studies have shown that older people are (on average) happier than middle-aged people.
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/better-re…
Anyway, I don’t think that family practice doctors will be able to screen patients for anxiety and depression very effectively in a 15-minute visit along with everything else they have to do. Unless the patient is self-aware enough to diagnose and present their own mental problems right off the bat.
Wendy