Subjects with affective or anxiety disorders who enter clinical trials have significant quality-of-life impairment, although the degree of dysfunction varies. Diagnostic-specific symptom measures explained only a small proportion of the variance in quality of life, suggesting that an individual's perception of quality of life is an additional factor that should be part of a complete assessment.

No abstract

Acute improvement in depression is associated with cognitive improvement as measured by the SLT and DSST. Prospective studies are warranted to study the effects of potential differences among antidepressant therapies on long-term cognitive outcomes in geriatric depression.

Sertraline was effective and well tolerated by older adults with major depression, although the drug-placebo difference was not large in this 8-week trial.

These results suggest that genetic variation in the serotonin transporter gene effects the response time to sertraline and provides complementing evidence to previous reports that this polymorphism affects response time to other SSRIs.