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Longitudinal associations between late-life depression dimensions and cognitive functioning: a cross-domain latent growth curve analysis

Brailean, A; Aartsen, MJ; Muniz-Terrera, G; Prince, M; Prina, AM; Comijs, HC; Huisman, M; (2017) Longitudinal associations between late-life depression dimensions and cognitive functioning: a cross-domain latent growth curve analysis. Psychological Medicine , 47 (4) pp. 690-702. 10.1017/S003329171600297X. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cognitive impairment and depression often co-occur in older adults, but it is not clear whether depression is a risk factor for cognitive decline, a psychological reaction to cognitive decline, or whether changes in depressive symptoms correlate with changes in cognitive performance over time. The co-morbid manifestation of depression and cognitive impairment may reflect either a causal effect or a common cause, depending on the specific symptoms experienced and the cognitive functions affected. METHOD: The study sample comprised 1506 community-dwelling older adults aged ⩾65 years from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA). We conducted cross-domain latent growth curve analyses to examine longitudinal associations between late-life depression dimensions (i.e. depressed affect, positive affect, and somatic symptoms) and specific domains of cognitive functioning (i.e. processing speed, inductive reasoning, immediate recall, and delayed recall). RESULTS: Poorer delayed recall performance at baseline predicted a steeper increase in depressed affect over time. Steeper decline in processing speed correlated with a steeper increase in somatic symptoms of depression over time. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest a prospective association between memory function and depressed affect, whereby older adults may experience an increase in depressed affect in reaction to poor memory function. Somatic symptoms of depression increased concurrently with declining processing speed, which may reflect common neurodegenerative processes. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that depression symptoms may be a risk factor for cognitive decline in the general population. These findings have potential implications for the treatment of late-life depression and for the prognosis of cognitive outcomes.

Type: Article
Title: Longitudinal associations between late-life depression dimensions and cognitive functioning: a cross-domain latent growth curve analysis
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1017/S003329171600297X
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1017/S003329171600297X
Language: English
Additional information: COPYRIGHT: © Cambridge University Press 2016 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Cognitive abilities, cognitive ageing, depression symptom dimensions, late-life depression, latent growth curve models.
UCL classification: UCL
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1559507
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