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Anxiety therapy doesn't work as well in elderly: study

Reuters Health News, 2012

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A form of talk therapy called cognitive behavioral therapy appears to help older adults battle anxiety disorders slightly better than other approaches, but not as well as in younger adults, according to a new study.
Eric Lenze, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine, who was not involved in this study.
Anxiety disorders, which include panic disorder, phobias, post-traumatic stress and generalized anxiety disorder, are common in adults over age 55.
The authors write in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society that three to 14 out of every 100 older adults has an anxiety disorder.
While earlier studies have shown that cognitive behavioral therapy works well for younger and middle-aged adults, there has not been as much research into the treatment for seniors.
"The prevailing assumption tends to be that what works with working-age people will work with older people, but this might not actually be the case," said Rebecca Gould, the lead author of the study and a researcher at King's College London.
Gould's team gathered up the results from 12 previous studies on people over age 55 with an anxiety disorder.
Half of the studies compared cognitive behavioral therapy to other treatments, such as medications or group discussions, while the other half compared the therapy to no treatment.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) often involves one-on-one meetings with a therapist, with the ultimate goal of solving the defective thinking process that's causing the disorder.
Compared to doing nothing, cognitive behavioral therapy had a "moderate" effect on helping people's anxiety.