The way that depressive symptoms progress across older adulthood varies in terms of dementia risk. A new study identifies different paths for the progress to occur.
Overall depression that starts before older adulthood was linked with an increased risk of dementia in older adulthood, according to a study published April 9 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia.
Meanwhile, depressive symptoms that started for the first time in older adulthood may be a symptom of dementia starting, the study found.
Researchers identified trajectories of depression symptoms and dementia risk assessed annually in 957 women over a 21-year span. At baseline, the average age was 72.7 years old. The team also looked at structural magnetic resonance imaging from 569 women.
Investigators examined whether estimates of cerebrovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease-related neurodegeneration were linked with the trajectories.
The team pinpointed five categories with regard to depressive symptoms and dementia risk. The first category was women with minimal depressive symptoms; the second was those with mild and stable symptoms just under clinically significant symptoms; the third group had remitting and relapsing symptoms that decreased during mid-older adulthood and went up in later-older adulthood. The fourth class had minimal depressive symptoms at the start of the study and symptoms that emerged during both mid and late-older adulthood; and the fifth class included depression emerging in late-older adulthood who had minimal symptoms in mid-older adulthood with increasing symptoms over late-older adulthood.
Researchers found that cerebrovascular disease may exist when depressive symptoms emerge in mid-older adulthood, while Alzheimer’s disease-related neurodegeneration may underlie the emergence of depressive symptoms in late-older adulthood, the researchers found.
“Understanding the heterogeneous patterns of depressive symptoms and dementia risk across older adulthood, and the underlying pathophysiological processes driving this association will provide important insight into clinical care to prevent incident future dementia and the development of depressive symptoms in older adulthood,” the authors wrote.
