Background: Depression can interfere with the normal expression of cognitive abilities in adults of all ages, but it is unclear if depression in demented people, which is common, is associated with reduced cognitive performance beyond the effect of the dementia itself. Objective: To determine if depression adds to the cognitive deficit in dementia. Design: Performance on psychometric tests of memory and other cognitive function was correlated with the number of depressive features reported by the individual and by a knowledgeable collateral source, as well as the judgment of a research clinician as to whether the person was depressed. Setting: An Alzheimer disease research center. Participants: The convenience sample included individuals with very mild (Clinical Dementia Rating, 0.5; n = 167 [mean age, 76.03 years]) or mild (Clinical De-mentia Rating, 1; n = 155 [mean age, 78.41 years]) Alzheimer disease who were enrolled in ongoing longitudinal studies at the center. Main Outcome Measures: Psychometric measures of memory and cognition. Results: Depression was present in 15% of the very mild and 24% of the mild dementia groups. There was no relation between the clinicians' diagnoses of depression and psychometric scores. Little relation was found between performance on the cognitive tests and the number of depressive features (maximum, 9) reported by the individual or collateral source. The few statistically significant (PϽ.05) correlations were modest (Յ0.21). Conclusion: Depression does not worsen cognitive test performance beyond the effect of dementia.

Recently, there has been a demand for increased educational technology usage in the university classroom, despite expanded access and implementation there has been little attention paid to student data privacy concerns. Our work is one institution's response to addressing the data privacy gap by creating a comprehensive review process for educational technology discernment and adoption. Our review process provides a critical degree of reliability and validity for informed decision-making surrounding educational technology selection. We prioritize the frames of safety, pedagogy, consistency, and accessibility throughout the review. With the creation of this review process educational technology stakeholders can make empirically based decisions regarding educational technologies. While this work is only one institution's response, we believe that this process and approach can empower a broad set of stakeholders to consider their method behind adopting educational technologies.

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