Association of perceived health and depression with older adults’ subjective memory complaints: contrasting a specific questionnaire with general complaints questions

Abstract

The objectives of this paper were to evaluate the association of subjective memory complaints (SMC) with perceived state of health, mood and episodic memory (associative and everyday memory). We studied these areas using two different complaint assessment methods (three general questions and a validated scale). The study included 269 older adults (aged 65-87) with age-related memory changes, but without cognitive impairment. They were evaluated with Mini-cognitive Exam, Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (a test of everyday memory), Paired Associates Learning Test, Memory Failures of Everyday Questionnaire, three memory complaints questions, Nottingham Health Profile and Geriatric Depression Scale. The results indicated that memory for everyday performance, mood and perceived health were independent predictors of SMC, with mood and perceived health being stronger predictors than actual memory performance. Age was not associated with subjective memory and, with regard to level of education, only the illiterate level was associated with SMC. A specific questionnaire on subjective memory was found to be preferable to an aggregate of complaints questions on self-reported memory; only health profile was found to predict the outcomes on memory complaints questions. Our conclusion is that a group of underlying factors other than everyday memory were playing a role in SMC; these SMC of subjects with age-related memory changes were mainly associated with subjective evaluations of their health.

Implementation of subjective cognitive decline criteria in research studies

“…Individual symptoms of depression or anxiety, or subsyndromal levels of these disorders that do not reach the threshold for diagnosis, are common in older adults and not considered exclusion criteria. Many psychiatric disorders are associated with significant cognitive complaints and even cognitive impairment (6, 55, 58, 59). Thus, including individuals with an active psychiatric disorder in studies of SCD in the context of preclinical AD would lower the specificity of the study design for AD and inflate the number of false positive cases.…”

Instruments of Active Search and Assessment of Memory Complaint. A Systematic Review

“…García-Sevilla et al [23] also utilized MFE to assess MC performance in individuals graduated from the memory training programme at Murcia University, Spain. Montejo et al [38] evaluated the association between MC and health, humor and episodic memory perception. These authors state that a more structured tool like MFE would be strongly correlated to other variables in comparison to non-structured memory complaint open questions (OQ).…”

Alterations in structural rich-club connectivity of the precuneus are associated with depressive symptoms among individuals with subjective memory complaints

“…Because depressive symptoms are frequently observed in subjects with SMCs (Hohman, Beason-Held, & Resnick, 2011;Montejo et al, 2014;Sousa, Pereira, & Costa, 2015), previous studies have suggested that SMCs may constitute symptom constellations of depression (Balash et al, 2013;Balash, Mordechovich, Shabtai, Merims, & Giladi, 2010;Buckley et al, 2013;Chin, Oh, Seo, & Na, 2014;Zlatar, Moore, Palmer, Thompson, & Jeste, 2014). However, given that depressive symptoms also are known to be a risk factor for developing cognitive impairment and dementia, and the severity of depressive symptoms in older adults are well correlated with the burden of AD pathology (Lavretsky et al, 2009), the comorbidity of depressive symptoms in subjects with SMCs may play a significant role in the potential progression from SMCs to dementia.…”