Depressed individuals have a 45% higher risk of stroke than non-depressed individuals and 25% higher risk for stroke-related mortality (Pan et al., 2011). The number of people suffering from depression in the nursing home population is very high. Whichever way defined, the prevalence rates found were three to four times higher compared to the community dwelling elderly (Jongenelis et al., 2004).

The Dusseldorf Hub tackles this issue by visiting elderly homes and talking to the older residents in person. Since depression often occurs due to overwhelming situations in life, the Hub wants to listen to the needs the elderly have. The Hub also wants to help them understanding their health issues, since this is a common topic older people have. Doing so, the project organizers want to prevent depression by a collaborative effort of different disciplines. If a depression is already at hand the Hub also will provide contact to professional psychologists for an extensive treatment.

The goal of this project is the prevention of late life depression. The Hub wants to reduce the amount of elderly people suffering from that disease and also want to raise awareness of this topic in the society.

On the long run the Hub wants to provide knowledge that is easy to apply also for non-psychologists to scale our impact to more than one elderly home.