Centre for Policy on Ageing



Prospective longitudinal study of depression and anosognosia in Alzheimer's disease
Author(s)	Sergio E Starkstein, Erán Chemerinski, Liliana Sabe
Journal title	The British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 171, no 1, July 1997
Pages	pp 47-52
Keywords	Depression ; Dementia ; Longitudinal surveys ; Argentina.
Annotation	Anosognosia is a prevalent disorder among Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, and increases with the progression of the illness. In this Argentinian study, 62 of a consecutive series of 116 AD patients were examined with a structured psychiatric interview , with one- and two-year follow-up evaluations. At the initial evaluation, 19% of the 62 patients had major depression, 34% had dysthymia, and 47% were not depressed. After a mean follow-up of 16 months, 58% of patients with major depression at initial evaluation were still depressed, whereas only 28% of patients with initial dysthymia and 21% of the non-depressed were depressed at follow-up. All three groups showed similar declines in cognitive status and activities of daily living in the follow-up period. At the initial evaluation, 39% of the patients had anosognosia, and there was a significant increment of anosognosia during the follow-up. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-980521003 A
Classmark	ENR: EA: 3J: 7W8
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