Question: My mother is 83 years old and has various health challenge as I listed below. Physically she is relatively fit in terms of mobility. Her mental status is sharp and she listen/talk/think no issue. However given her blood pressure flunction and irregular heart rate problem, her daily life is not pleasant. Myself and my siblings (brother and sister) also feels she might have anxieties. She has challenge to sleep which we feel is somewhat due to her medical issue as well as her anxiety. Certainly another part of her potential anxiety is challenges with relationship with my father (her husband), and we feel she is hard to let go of the past. She sometimes has a lot of negativity in her thinking. She is not lack of awareness but she said she could not help..

Our question is first, what sign we should watch to understand better whether she has anxiety strong enough to warrant a visit to a psychologist? and how best do we explain/position to convince her to see a psychologist if needed? Obviously if we bring up the topic directly to her, she very likely we feel we don't understand her medical problem and trying to down play her medical problem.

Thanks!
Helen