Is escitalopram efficacious in the elderly?

In an 8 week open-label naturalistic study (n= 5453) enrolling patients with depression and with age above 18 years and older, the proportion of elderly patients above 60 years were n= 784. This naturalistic study demonstrated escitalopram to be effective in treating depression in patients above 60 years with response rates of approximately 70% which were similar to response rates for the population < 60 years. Furthermore Escitalopram was well tolerated in the elderly patients, with a low rate of discontinuation due to adverse events (ref.1).

In a separate study (ref.2) escitalopram was also found to be well tolerated in elderly patients.

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References:

1. Rush et al 2004

2. Reines et al. 2004