SPECIAL REPORT: Maximizing Social Security Benefits. Your Social Security benefits are calculated based on your highest 35 years of earnings or half of your spouseâs benefits -- whichever is higher -- if you retire at full retirement age (currently 66). For a worker retiring at age 66 in 2012, the maximum benefit is currently $2,513 per month. If both you and your spouse earned the maximum amount that counts every year ($110,100 in 2012, but just $16,500 in 1977), you could each receive the maximum monthly benefits.
There are obvious signs of depression, like feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and anxietyâbut depression can also cause unexplained physical symptoms. Physical pain and depression are closely related. Simply put, pain can be depressing, and depression causes and intensifies pain. Some research shows that pain and depression share common pathways in the limbic (emotional) region of the brain. In fact, the same chemical messengers control pain and mood.
Severe chronic pain is associated with increased 10 year mortality, particularly from heart disease and respiratory disease. People with chronic pain tend to have higher rates of depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and neuroticism; these are correlations and it is often not clear which factor causes another.