[The life situations of old people with reference to suicide risk (authors' transl)].

58% of all acts of suicide are committed by persons over the age of 45, even 69% among women. In addition to medical grounds (the risk of suicide is high in depressive diseases in retirement age) the particular sociobiographical situation in the second half of life is responsible for this: changes in family and occupational structure, progressive restriction due to disease, external and internal isolation with consequent fears of being exposed to helplessness, loneliness and death. The anthropological and deep psychological aspects are characterized by inactivity, the change of worries relating to objects to restrictive worries about oneself with mobilization of anxiety, hypochondria, mistrust, resignation and depression.