Tapgol Park, located in central Seoul, is a popular destination for local seniors. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, March 23 (Korea Bizwire) — Elderly individuals who suffer from executive function disorder (EFD), a type of cognitive disorder, are up to seven times more likely to commit suicide than elderly people without EFD, a research showed Monday.
A research team from Seoul National University Hospital said it had confirmed this fact after seven years of tracking 1,185 elderly people over 60 years of age who were diagnosed with EFD between 2010 and 2012.
Elderly individuals with EFD have difficulty making appropriate and flexible responses to the changing face of the environment the are in.
The study showed that the suicide rate of elderly individuals with EFD was estimated at 0.8 percent, far higher than 0.1 percent for the control group with normal cognitive function.
Even allowing for the impact of depression and other risk factors, the suicide risk of the elderly with EFD was up to seven times higher than that of the control group.
In particular, among the elderly with EFD, those who were older than 75 years or lived alone with economic difficulty had a far higher suicide rate.
“The elderly with damaged executive function have difficulty making adequate responses when they face difficult situations. Accordingly, they are at higher risk of taking their own lives than others,” said Oh Dae-jong, a professor at SMG-SNU Boramae Medical Center who co-carried out the study.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
