The problem is not that people who need antidepressants use them, it is that, especially for the elderly and the very young, there is a rush to medicate before understanding the problem.
People today have difficulty differentiating between sadness/grief and clinical depression, temporary feelings of being 'down' in mood but not suffering clinical depression. Too often people would rather medicate than face and make decisions about very real problems in their lives. Also, even in this affluent society vitamin, mineral, enzyme, hormone, etc, deficiencies abound, all of which can affect our moods for long-terms. I think this may be especially true of the elderly. Doctors too often prescribe what their patients demand instead of helping them discover the cause of their misery.
Nevertheless, the antidepressants truly are life-savers for the truly clinically depressed.
I just wonder about the 'research' cited in the article. The recommendations are just too broad. How many of those elderly are lonely, and once the pschotherapy is 'completed', and they're dumped by the therapists (insurance runs out for that, you know), then it's just easier to medicate them?
It becomes my business the minute someone asks me to pay for it, which has already happened. Now that it's my business, my position is that I want to pay for none of it. If you would rather my sympathy, make it so that someone else's depression doesn't mean stealing money from me by coercion and force.