With the end of daylight savings time, many people begin to feel significantly more tired, less energetic, and somewhat depressed. For those people these feelings recur every year, lasting through the winter months until spring.  For some, the depression is coupled with anxiety, even suicidal thoughts.

When these feelings occur for at least two years, and then persist for at least two weeks or more, it may be suspected that that person is suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD.

In Northern Europe, according to the Cleveland Clinic, an estimated 12 million people suffer from SAD. Here in the US, 4%-6% of the total population may suffer from SAD but 10%-20% may experience much milder symptoms known as "the winter blues".

Treatment for SAD is mainly environmental in the form of full spectrum light therapy, exposure to full spectrum lights, in the form of light boxes, visors or dawn stimulators, used most beneficially in the morning for approximately 15 to 30 minutes.  In our office, we replaced normal florescent tubes with natural spectrum. It was surprising how much better people felt after a few days. Simply putting natural spectrum lights in the senior's home, especially in a reading lamp, may help.  For others, antidepressant therapy may be required.  A physician should always be contacted and treatment monitored.

SAD seems to strike mostly younger women, in their 20's, 30's and 40's. The diagnosis more often seen in seniors is major depressive disorder. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health, depression affects more than 6.5 million of the 35 million Americans aged 65 years or older. But seniors do share some similarities with sufferers of SAD. Seniors, over time, tend to increasingly withdraw from the outdoors and sunlight as they become more "homebound".  Also, over time, photoreception declines reducing the ability to produce the enzyme serotonin.

In a study published in the "Archives of General Psychiatry", 2011, the researcher, R. Lieveerse,  reported that for seniors who had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, light therapy  reduced the symptoms of their depression. It was found that after three weeks of bright-light therapy (one hour per day), depressed seniors demonstrated significant improvement in their levels of melatonin, were able to achieve efficient rest during sleep and awakened more quickly and with better mood on arousal from sleep.