Older adult outpatients with major depression (« = 25) and healthy control subjects (n = 25) were compared using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Both measures were sensitive in detecting clinical depression. Subjects were, however, more likely to endorse multiple responses on BDI items, suggesting that the GDS is simpler for older adults to complete. Viewed within the context of previous relevant research that used these instruments to compare older adults, our results yield additional evidence of cross-study consistency in the functional efficiency of both measures.Two of the most popular self-report measures of depression currently used are the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS; Yesavage et al., 1983) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). Yet, in the elderly, their relative efficiencies as screening instruments for major depression have been assessed solely in Veterans Administration (VA) samples of male psychiatric inpatients (Hyer & Blount, 1984), medical inpatients (Morris, Gallagher, Wilson, & Winograd, 1987), and medical outpatients (Rapp, Parisi, Walsh, & Wallace, 1988), but not in psychiatric outpatients.Functional efficiency, the accuracy with which a screening instrument can distinguish one group of subjects (e.g., depressed elderly) from another, was estimated for the GDS and BDI by comparing healthy, older-adult male and female outpatients with major depression to age-and gender-matched control subjects. In addition, because the Somatic subscale on the BDI might increase the likelihood of false-positive diagnoses in older adults (Hyer & Blount, 1984), and because the true-false format of the GDS might be simpler for older adults to complete than the multiple-choice format of the BDI (Norris et al, 1987), item-response properties, the style in which individual items are completed, were examined. Method SubjectsSubjects (N = 50) were community-dwelling male and female older adults (mean age = 64.2, SD -5.36, range = 56-77 years), recruited

No abstract

The use of low-dose L-deprenyl, a selective MAO-B inhibitor, in Alzheimer's disease patients has been associated previously with improvements in agitation and episodic learning and memory. Behavioral, cognitive, and regional electroencephalogram (EEG) measures were obtained in a 4-week open pilot study of 14 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease by NINCDS criteria who were administered 10 mg L-deprenyl per day. L-Deprenyl administration was associated with significant improvements on the agitation and depression factors of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia, and spouses' blind ratings. Recall improved on the Buschke Selective Reminding Task, but intrusions also tended to increase; verbal fluency decreased. Absolute EEG delta measures were selectively suppressed in the right frontal region. The pattern of changes suggests that L-deprenyl may be associated with improvement in behavioral and cognitive performance, in part through a mild behavioral disinhibiting effect.

No abstract

Personality traits in euthymic elderly subjects with and without past histories of major depressive episodes were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R and the Social Adjustment Scale-SR. Recovered depressed subjects were characterized by significantly more personality traits from DSM-III-R Clusters B and C than controls, and they exhibited differences in social adjustment, as well. Subjects who have recovered from depressive episodes may show significant diferences in personality and social adjustment that might represent residua of past depression, a trait characteristic, or a risk factor for recurrence.