Senior suicide: the silent generation speaking up

The age group most at risk of suicide may not be the one you expect.

The highest rate of suicide in Australia, for both men and women, is among people over 85, at 32.7 deaths per 100,000 for men and 10.6 deaths for women, respectively.

The global picture is similar. People over the age of 70 kill themselves at nearly three times the rate of the general population. Suicide attempts are also more lethal among older people, with US data showing that about one in four suicide attempts of older people result in death, compared with one in 25 among the general population.

But even these numbers are likely to be underestimates, says Prof Diego De Leo, emeritus professor of psychiatry at Griffith University.

Unless the death of an older person is very clearly a suicide, it is not likely to be investigated, he says, and deaths relating to misuse of medication or even falls that may have been deliberate are often assumed to be the result of senility or frailty.

“It’s widely reported in literature that there’s much more interest in scrutinising the causes of death of a young body than of an old man,” he says.