The Effect of Depression on Cognitive Performance in Mild Stage PRAD Patients

Abstract

Scientific background: Even reported depression is common in people with dementia, its recognition and effective therapy remains obscure. As a result, this lowers the quality of life in demented patients. There is an immediate need for the development of betterscientific tools for the detection of depression among these patients. Objectives: The objective of the study is to determine if depression adds to the cognitive deficit in mild stage PRAD patients. Material and methods: 104 age and education matched, mild stageprobable AD (PRAD) patients - due to NINCDS-ADRDA criteria - registered in the Cognitive Disorders Subdepartment of department of Neurology in GATA Haydarpaşa Training Hospital, were recruited for the study. Study population is divided into two different groups after calculating the mean GDS scores as "PRAD patients without depression" with low GDS scores and "PRAD patients with depression" with high GDS scores. Groups were compared with each other and also with the control group consisted of 36 normal subjects with the neuropsychological tests evaluating the subdomains of the cognitive functions. Results: There were statistically (ANOVA, p>0.05) significantdifference between the groups. No correlation was found in control group and "PRAD patients without depression" between the GDS and neuropsycological test scores (Pearson correlation, p>0.05), where a significant correlation was found between the GDS scores and neuropsychological tests vulnarable to attention, memory and executive functions in "PRAD patients with depression" (Pearson correlation, p<0.05). Logical memory test was found to be the one, which this significance was very clearly present (r=-0.80, p<0.001). Conclusion: Concomittant depression and its severity was associatedwith worse cognitive performance in the mild PRAD patients.