Midlife Crisis at 90 Years of Age?

This psychiatrist says that the traditional midlife crisis hasn’t been established by data (subscription might be required) but that in his practice he’s found more elderly are having episodes with the earmarks of a midlife crisis. He says these episodes usually are triggered by a series of losses and other events that are too much for the individuals.

Enter the late-life crisis as a trend I am seeing increasingly in my geriatric psychiatry practice, in which individuals in their 70s through 90s are wrestling with existential questions that eluded their psyches during middle-aged years of active work, love and play. Now, facing a true twilight of illness, disability and loss, all hell can sometimes break loose in these older lives.

There are few studies that have actually examined the concept of a late-life crisis, but the small literature that does exist has described the phenomenon as a period of months or years in which a major life transition or stressor overwhelms a person’s ability to cope, resulting in uncharacteristic emotional and behavioral eruptions.