The potential for pharmacological treatment of unpleasant psychological symptoms to increase personal fulfillment in old age

Abstract

As some people get older, they experience a decline in their subjective sense of fulfillment. Life may become less rewarding, happiness diminished in intensity. This is usually regarded as an inevitable consequence of the ageing process: regrettable, but a circumstance to which stoical endurance is the only constructive response. This situation is potentially avoidable, for some individuals at least; not at some indefinite point in the future, but now. By using existing and available drugs in a novel fashion to treat the unpleasant psychological symptoms associated with ageing, a substantial improvement in the quality of life may be obtained.