A new study suggests that elderly, who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder, can be effectively treated with Lexapro a well-known antidepressant.

General anxiety disorder is considered a common psychiatric disorder in elderly. Chronic worry, muscle tension, fatigue and sleep disturbance are some of common symptoms of this disorder. Dr Eric J Lenze, the lead author of the study, says:“This is the first major study regarding use of antidepressant drugs as anxiety disorders treatment for elderly.

In the US, nearly 7.3% elderly people are found with general anxiety disorder and these rates are quite high in those older adults, who have been receiving medical care.

“For a quite long time, there wasn’t any specific treatment for this sort of disorders or different sedatives like Xanax, or Valium were used for treatment, but the safety of these drugs was often being questioned,” Lenze added.

Lexapro belongs to the group of antidepressants which is known as SSRLs that is considered safe enough and these drugs have been approved to treat anxiety

In their study, the researchers only used Lexapro, but according to Lenze some other SSRIs can also produce similar sort of effects.

In their study, Lenze and his team tested the effects of Lexapro in 176 adults and 50 older who had generalized anxiety disorder. These participants of the study were randomly given Lexapro or a placebo for 13 weeks.

The researchers noted that the people who were on Lexapro had nearly 69% decrease in their levels of anxiety.