May was Mental Health Awareness Month. But the topic is important 12 months a year.
In the latest installment of our “Mental Health Matters” series, Timothy Schmutte — a Westport resident, clinical psychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine — and his wife Elenee Argentinis focus on mental health issues faced by people age 50 and older.
Names and details have been modified, to protect privacy. Timothy and Elenee write:
About 1/4 of Westport’s population is over age 60.
According to a 2025 report on healthy aging in Connecticut, Westport was among the healthiest towns, with lower rates of various chronic illnesses and disabilities.
Additionally, more Westport seniors were employed in the last year (31%) than the state average for those aged 65+ years (22%).
Nonetheless, around 6% of Westport seniors have a substance use disorder. 27% live with significant anxiety; 29% with depression.
Despite being one of the wealthiest towns in the state, roughly 15% of Westport seniors live in poverty, or are considered low-income.
Modern medicine enables many people to live into their 80s and 90s. What does it mean that many people are living into late adulthood?
This phase of life has evolved into several distinct stages. During people’s 50s and 60s, many work and family changes occur.
Jobs and careers may conclude. Children may move out. Long-term marriages or committed relationships may end. Health concerns emerge.
For some people, mid- and later adulthood can be a rebirth. New vocations are discovered, new love interests are found, new friends are made.
Often though, these chapters begin with transitions that bring grief, loss, and fear of the unknown.
Therapy can help patients acknowledge and verbalize their loss or pain, and transition into healthy thoughts and actions. Cognitive behavioral techniques include challenging thinking errors about how life may never be as great as it once was. Acceptance and commitment therapy can help people identify what they can control, and move their lives forward.
Westport has a very active Senior Center — and groups like the Y’s Men (whose Hoot Owls, pictured above, sang there), offering activities for retired and semi-retired people. (Photo/Ted Horowitz)
I’ve worked with a few executives who are starting to feel burnout they’ve never felt before. Symptoms like sleeplessness, aggravation, excessive drinking or taking sedatives to sleep can be signs that it’s time to make a change. Sometimes parents struggle with their child’s pre-college academics, getting nervous about where their child will go and feeling sad that they will soon leave home.
Often in “mid-life” people can feel like they are being bombarded by several major changes at once. Their own parents can become ill, kids reach college age and careers end, all at once. The 50s can feel like a “when it rains, it pours” period of life.
As adults reach their 60s and 70s health issues can crop up. Social isolation can set in, as peers and family members die or move away.
Two memorable clients included a woman who developed anxiety while living alone that made her too fearful to leave her home and take public transportation. We used exposure therapy to get her back on the bus and back into life.
Another female client experienced rapid onset of an aggressive neuro-motor disease, and faced her own mortality in just a couple of years. She sought coping skills to take control of the parts of her life that she could, and do everything she could to feel a sense of control, like making end-of-life plans, and doing activities she had wanted to do with her family while she was still able.
The seventh decade and beyond can bring cognitive changes, including the risk of dementia and personality changes as the brain ages. Mobility may be reduced, with aging joints, pain and surgeries.
Sleep quality tends to decline with age as well, which can impair cognitive function and affect mood. In cases like these, I often work with social services providers to help people maintain independent living, or make decisions about where they can live their lives most fully as they age.
Older adult health can be more complex, as people develop multiple health conditions and may take several medications to treat them. Sometimes symptoms that appear to be mental health-related may be caused by an underlying medical condition, or be a side effect of an existing medication. We work closely with physicians to ferret this out.
The period of 30-40 years after age 50 is like living an entire second lifetime. It can be a phase of freedom, self-actualization and discovery, but it often comes with hardship. This life phase includes changes in family structure, work, social connections and health.
Each decade brings new challenges that we should all be aware of, for ourselves or as we watch aging grandparents, parents, and members of our community.
Spotting and acting on signs of struggle can alleviate unnecessary sufferingm and unlock new possibilities well into our later years.
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