Prevalence and Covariates of Elevated Depressive Symptoms in Rural Memory Clinic Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment or Dementia

Abstract

Background/Aims: To estimate the prevalence, severity, and covariates of depressive symptoms in rural memory clinic patients diagnosed with either mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia. Methods: In a cross-sectional study of 216 rural individuals who attended an interdisciplinary memory clinic between March 2004 and July 2012, 51 patients were diagnosed with MCI and 165 with either dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD) or non-AD dementia. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies of Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to estimate the severity and prevalence of clinically elevated depressive symptomatology. Results: The prevalence of elevated depressive symptoms was 51.0% in the MCI patients and 30.9% in the dementia patients. Depressive symptoms were more severe in the MCI patients than in the dementia patients. Elevated depressive symptoms were statistically associated with younger age for the MCI group, with lower self-rated memory for the dementia group, and with increased alcohol use and lower quality of life ratings for all patients. In the logistic regression models, elevated depressive symptoms remained negatively associated with self-rated memory and quality of life for the patients with dementia, but significant bivariate associations did not persist in the MCI group. Conclusions: The high prevalence and severity of depressive symptoms among rural memory clinic patients diagnosed with either MCI or dementia warrant continued investigation.

Depressive symptomatology and associated factors in dementia in Europe: home care versus long-term care

“…Depression is a common comorbid disorder of dementia, affecting between 6% and 61% of PwD (Bielinski and Lawlor, 2006;Snowden et al, 2015). Evidence on factors associated in dementia suggests that dependency with daily activities (Starkstein et al, 2005;Knapskog et al, 2013), poor cognition (Kosteniuk et al, 2014), behavioral problems (Gruber-Baldini et al, 2005;Van der Mussele et al, 2013), poor QoL (Kosteniuk et al, 2014), and high levels of pain (Chou, 2007;Zwakhalen et al, 2009) have all been linked to depression. Further analysis using a multinational sample comprising eight European countries and reported at each of the three stages of dementia (mild, moderate, severe) could provide additional insights into the factors linked to depression.…”

Cognitive Impairment, Depression, and Cooccurrence of Both among the Elderly in Panama: Differential Associations with Multimorbidity and Functional Limitations

“…Older adults are disproportionately affected by several chronic conditions. Among the elderly, chronic conditions such as cognitive impairment and depression are interrelated and often coexist [ 6 – 9 ], and at least one report confirms that each condition alone contributes to the increase of an older person's risk for mortality [ 10 ]. Recent studies have shown that subjects with MCI present more depressive symptoms compared with those without cognitive impairment [ 7 , 11 , 12 ].…”

Trajectories of Depressive Symptomatology in Rural Memory Clinic Patients between Baseline Diagnosis and 1-Year Follow-Up

“…Moreover, the prevalence of depression was higher in memory clinic patients diagnosed with dementia due to AD compared to those diagnosed with MCI [ 5 ]. We previously observed that the prevalence of elevated depressive symptoms (depressive symptomatology) did not differ significantly between memory clinic patients with non-AD dementia versus those with AD dementia (38.2 vs. 27.3%); however, we found a significantly higher prevalence and severity of elevated depressive symptoms in patients with MCI than in those with dementia due to AD and non-AD dementia (51 vs. 23.9%) [ 15 ].…”