Zhong X, et al. - Whether or not patients with late-life depression are at increased risk for reliable global cognitive declines in 1 year was investigated, as were risk factors that predict these cognitive declines. Findings suggest the association of late-life depression with a greatly increased risk of reliable cognitive decline in the short term. Cortisol dysregulation seemed to contribute to cognitive decline pathology.

Methods

• Researchers conducted a prospective 1-year follow-up study involving 148 participants (67 with late-life depression and 81 normal elderly).
• Using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), they assessed global cognitive functions.
• The reliable change index (RCI) of the MMSE defined the reliable global cognitive decline.
• They obtained factors related to cognitive function (eg, age, gender, education, duration of depression and severity of depression), and serum cortisol levels were measured at baseline.

Results

• At the 1-year follow-up assessment, researchers noted that 19 patients with late-life depression (28.4%) had reliable global cognitive declines, a risk that was 6.4 times (95% CIs =1.3-31.1, p=0.021) higher than that of normal elderly.
• Findings suggested an association of elevated serum cortisol levels and older age with the risk of cognitive decline that was 1.6- and 1.2-times higher (95% CIs = 1.07-2.5, p=0.02, and 95% CIs = 1.04-1.4, p=0.01 respectively).