Are specific symptoms of depression predictive of Alzheimer's dementia?

Objective: To investigate whether specific symptoms of major depression are associated with later development of possible or probable Alzheimer's dementia.

Method: The analysis is part of the Vienna Transdanube Aging Study, a prospective, community-based cohort study of all 75-year-old inhabitants of 2 Viennese districts. Current depressive symptoms were captured with a DSM-IV-TR-based questionnaire.

The influence of depression on processing speed and executive function in nondemented subjects aged 75.

Neuropsychological deficits are commonly found to be part of depression in old age and might simultaneously represent early symptoms of dementia. We investigated the influence of depression on processing speed and executive function in subjects who did not develop dementia during the following 5 years to examine whether these neuropsychological dysfunctions are due to depression or are influenced by other causes (e.g.

Prospective study on association between plasma amyloid beta-42 and atherosclerotic risk factors.

An association between plasma Amyloid beta peptides (Aβ) with blood lipids was reported in cross-sectional studies. The present study examined the 5-year prospective association of atherosclerotic risk factors with plasma Aβ42 in 440 elderly persons without both Alzheimer's disease (AD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) at baseline. Persons in the highest tertile of total cholesterol (TC) or LDL-C at baseline showed low plasma Aβ42 at 5 years.

Plasma amyloid beta-42 independently predicts both late-onset depression and Alzheimer disease.

Objectives: Depression in the elderly might represent a prodromal phase of Alzheimer disease (AD). High levels of plasma amyloid beta-42 (Aβ42) were found in prestages of AD and also in depressed patients in cross-sectional studies. This study examined the association of emerging late-onset depression (LOD) and AD with plasma Aβ42 in a sample of never depressed and not demented persons at baseline.

Prediction of Alzheimer dementia with short neuropsychological instruments.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the neuropsychological instruments in predicting Alzheimer dementia after 5 years in the context of a longitudinal population-based cohort study. A total of 585 nondemented 75-year-old individuals completed neuropsychological examination at the baseline investigation; 479 subjects were followed after 30 months and 404 after 60 months. Cognition, depression and memory complaints were evaluated with psychometric instruments.