Executive Deficits in Elderly Patients With Major Unipolar Depression

Abstract

Several studies have evaluated executive function in depressed patients, and the results vary from significant impairment relative to controls to virtually intact performances. To better comprehend executive impairment in elderly patients with major unipolar depression, the performance of 21 elderly depressed patients was compared with that of 19 elderly normal controls on executive tasks. The relationships between memory deficits and depression severity and between memory deficits and executive dysfunction were also examined. Depressed patients' performance was significantly worse than that of controls on almost all executive tasks. Their score for logical memory was significantly correlated with that for several executive tasks. Executive performance was also correlated with depression severity. Unipolar depressed patients present executive deficits. Memory failure in these patients may reflect impairment in retrieval processes, which in turn depends on executive function. Executive deficits are associated with depression severity. These results may be useful in the differential diagnosis between depression and early Alzheimer's disease.

Neuropsychological Functioning in the Acute and Remitted States of Late-Life Depression

“…These results provide further support for the conclusion that LLD patients as a whole are characterized by impairments of episodic memory, speed of information processing, executive functioning, and visuospatial ability [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]26], and that of these domains, information processing speed and executive functioning are particularly vulnerable. By circumventing the confounding effects of practice (i.e., performance change resulting from repeated testing) and time (often seen in progressive neurodegenerative diseases) in the current analyses, the robustness of this pattern of findings is enhanced.…”

“…LLD has negative effects on quality of life, global functioning, physical health, as well as cognition, and up to half of individuals with LLD are estimated to have cognitive impairment greater than that of age-and education-equated comparison subjects [2,3]. Such cognitive deficits have been associated with higher depression relapse rates, poorer response to antidepressant treatment, and greater overall disability, and include impairments of episodic memory, speed of information processing, executive functioning, and visuospatial ability [2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. Of these domains, information processing speed and executive functioning are considered to be particularly vulnerable, and several studies have reported that cognitive impairment associated with LLD is predominantly mediated by slowed speed of information processing and/or working memory deficits [2,4].…”

Consensus paper of the WFSBP Task Force on Biological Markers: Biological Markers in Depression

“…These discrepancies may reflect a number of methodological issues, including variation in diagnostic criteria, test selection and strategies used to perform this task. Executive processes are also likely to contribute to impairments in memory performance (Baudic et al 2004), as depressed participants have been found to show greater impairment in recalling information that benefits from semantic organisation compared to information that does not (Channon et al 1993).…”

Association between depression severity and executive functioning in late-life depression: a systematic review

“…After the screening, 908 articles were excluded as they were not related to the defined research question. Ten reports were screened for full-text and two were excluded as they did not analyze any kind of association between symptom severity and executive functioning, leaving a total of 8 included studies, 9,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26] as illustrated in figure 1. A summary of the participants' clinical and sociodemographic characteristics is presented in Tables 1 and 2.…”

“…9,26 Five of the studies used the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM to determine MDD, while one study opted for the National Institute of Mental Health interview. 20 Baudic et al 24 used a non-standardized clinical interview and a cut-off point of the Montgomery and Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) (>20). Murphy et al 26 used the DSM-IV criteria but assessed included subjects using the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia.…”