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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Progressive disability in senile dementia is accelerated in the presence of depression | | Author(s) | Karen Ritchie, J Touchon, Bernard Ledésert |
| Journal title | International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 13, no 7, July 1998 |
| Pages | pp 459-461 |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Depression ; Mental disorder ; Self care capacity ; Evaluation ; France. |
| Annotation | The evolution of disabilities was measured in 397 older people with sub-clinical cognitive deficit, recruited from a general practitioner (GP) research network in the south of France as part of the Eugeria longitudinal study of cognitive ageing. Over the three years of the study, 11% of the cohort developed dementia without depression, and 5% dementia with depression. Progressive disablement was found to be greater in those with senile dementia as compared to normal subjects. Depression alone had no significant effect over the time period. Those with both senile dementia and depression had significantly higher rates of disability at 3 years than those with senile dementia alone. In the senile depression/dementia group only, significant decrements were observed in dressing, washing, use of telephone and continence. Depression does not in itself engender significant disability, but interacts with senile dementia to accelerate loss of functioning. Effective treatments of depressive illness in senile dementia may have significant impact on the prevalence and severity of disability. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-980810005 A |
| Classmark | EA: ENR: E: CA: 4C: 765 |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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