No abstract

Objective: To determine the sensitivity and specificity of three depression screening scales to diagnose major depressive episodes in the elderly. Methods: Participants (n=129, 88% female) answered a semi-structured psychiatric interview (Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview) to determine the diagnosis of major depressive disorder. After this, depressive symptoms in depressed and non-depressed subjects were assessed by independent administration of the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), and 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression . Results: Patients with major depression and controls did not differ in age and gender distribution. The sensitivity and specificity of all scales to identify a major depressive episode in older adults were X 90%. There were no significant differences between the areas under the curve for PHQ-9 vs. HDRS-17 (z = 1.2, p = 0.2), PHQ-9 vs. GDS-15 (z = 0.26, p = 0.8), or HDRS-17 vs. GDS-15 (z = 1.2, p = 0.2). Conclusion: This study provides evidence supporting the use of PHQ-9 and GDS-15, both of which are simple to administer and easy to interpret, to diagnose major depressive episodes in older adults without neurocognitive disorders.

The Stick Design Test shows evidence of construct, criterion-related and ecological validity. It is an interesting alternative to drawing tasks for the assessment of visuospatial abilities.

Aim: In this manuscript, we report data on the association between executive functions screened by Frontal Assessment Battery, Five Digit Test and Digit Span with self-reported depressive symptoms and sleep complaints in non-demented older adults.Methods: A total sample of 95 non-demented older adults performed Geriatric Depression Scale short version, Frontal Assessment Battery, Five Digit Test, Digit Span, and clinical interview. We split participants in groups stratified by age according to: young-old (60–69 years of age), old-old (70–79 years), and oldest-old (>80 years) and compared these three groups on the sociodemographic characteristics and executive functions performance. We carried out Poisson regression with robust error variance to verify sleep complaints and depression effects on executive functions performance. Gender, age, years of formal education, use of antidepressants and of benzodiazepines were considered as confounding variables, taking into account executive functions as dependent and sleep complaints and depression as independent variables.Results: Controlling the effect of age, gender, years of formal education, use of benzodiazepines and of antidepressants there was a significant influence of depression in motor programming, inhibitory control, and working memory. Individuals without depression show motor programming scores 68.4% higher, inhibitory control scores 3 times greater and working memory scores also 3 times greater than individuals without depression. There was a significant influence of sleep complaints in phonemic fluency, motor programming, inhibitory control, and working memory. Individuals without sleep complaints show phonemic fluency scores 2 times greater than, motor programming scores 85.9% higher, inhibitory control scores 3 times greater and working memory scores also 3 times greater than individuals without sleep complaints.Conclusions: Sleep complaints are associated with phonemic fluency, motor programming, inhibitory control, and working memory impairment. Depression symptoms presence are associated with motor programming and working memory performances. Depression and sleep complaints interaction would determine worse phonemic fluency, inhibitory control and working memory cognitive performance than these two conditions alone.

Objective:The assessment of visuospatial abilities and memory using tasks such as the Taylor Complex Figure Task (TCFT) is biased for older adults with low formal education. We devised a "Simplified" version of the TCFT designed to assess older adults with low educational background and provide preliminary evidence of its psychometric properties. Methods:We evaluated a heterogeneous sample of healthy older adults and patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease dementia using the simplified TCFT and other neuropsychological measures. Results:Our results suggest that the test copy, immediate and delayed recall have high inter-rater agreement and internal consistency, significant correlations with other tests of visuospatial abilities, memory and intelligence, and also detected significant group differences between controls and patients. Conclusion:Our study presents a new measure for assessing low-educated elderly with promising evidence of validity and reliability.