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Patterns of Late-Life Depressive Symptoms and Subsequent Declines in Cognitive Domains



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  • Personal Author:
  • Description:
    BACKGROUND: Depression frequently co-occurs with cognitive decline, but the nature of this association is unclear. We examined relations of late-life depressive symptom patterns to subsequent domain-specific cognitive changes. METHODS: Depressive symptoms were measured at up to 3 timepoints among 11,675 Nurses' Health Study participants prior to cognitive testing. Depressive symptom patterns were categorized as non-depressed, variable or persistent, based on published severity cutpoints. Outcomes were global, verbal, and executive function-attention composite scores. RESULTS: Participants with persistent depressive symptoms had worse executive function-attention decline compared with non-depressed participants (multivariable-adjusted mean difference = -0.03 units/year, 95% CI: -0.05, -0.01; p = 0.003); this difference was comparable with 8 years of aging. However, being in the persistent versus non-depressed group was not significantly related to verbal (p = 0.71) or global score (p = 0.09) decline. By contrast, compared with the non-depressed group, those with variable depressive symptoms had worse verbal memory decline (multivariable-adjusted mean difference = -0.01 units/year, 95% CI: -0.02, -0.002; p = 0.03); this group showed no differences for global or executive function-attention decline. CONCLUSIONS: A variable pattern of depressive symptom severity related to subsequent decline in verbal memory, while a persistent pattern related to decline in executive function-attention. Findings could signal differences in underlying neuropathologic processes among persons with differing depression patterns and late-life cognitive decline. [Description provided by NIOSH]
  • Subjects:
  • Keywords:
  • ISSN:
    0885-6230
  • Document Type:
    Text
  • Funding:
    Grant
  • Genre:
    Journal Article
  • Place as Subject:
  • CIO:
    National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
  • Topic:
    Workplace Safety & Health
  • Location:
    North America
  • Volume:
    32
  • Issue:
    12
  • NIOSHTIC Number:
    nn:20050751
  • Citation:
    Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 2017 Dec; 32(12):1330-1341
  • Contact Point Address:
    J. Cai Gillis, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, 02115-5810
  • Email:
    caigillis@mail.harvard.edu
  • Federal Fiscal Year:
    2018
  • Performing Organization:
    Harvard School of Public Health
  • Peer Reviewed:
    True
  • Start Date:
    20050701
  • Source Full Name:
    International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry
  • End Date:
    20280630
  • Collection(s):
  • Main Document Checksum:
    urn:sha-512:a5a679479b642b6ff304f32eccbf0081d67d0d62e842236d35a1f4376bbec8ead3eff9df412100bdc461cdc12f1637aff44a0bde792eacfa7dde67dec71323e5
  • Download URL:
  • File Type:
    Filetype[PDF - 681.32 KB ]
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