P1-254: Prevalence of major depression in patients with different stages of cognitive impairment

Abstract

The prevalence of depression is higher in demented than in nondemented persons but the prevalence of depression in different stages of cognitive impairment is yet to be studied. To establish the prevalence of major depression in patients with different stages of cognitive impairment. A post–mortem retrospective study evaluating patients aged 50 or more years, included in the Aging Brain Project from University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. The diagnosis of major depression was assessed retrospectively by interview with a knowledgeable informant using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM IV (SCID I;First and Spitzer 2002). The cognitive evaluation was gathered in the same interview using the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR; Burke and cols 1988) staging cognitive impairment in five levels: CDR 0 (normal), CDR 0.5 (questionable), CDR 1 (mild impairment), CDR 2 (moderate impairment) and CDR 3 (severe impairment). A population of 799 patients was enrolled. Of those, 106 (13.3%) were diagnosed as having depression. The prevalence of major depression found for different CDR levels was: 9.5% (53 patients) for CDR 0; 15.7% (14 patients) for CDR 0.5; 24.0% (12 patients) for CDR 1; 35.6% (16 patients) for CDR 2 and 19.0% (11 patients) for CDR 3. (p<0.001). The prevalence of major depression tends to rise as the cognitive impairment progresses. This prevalence can be more than three times higher in cognitive impaired patients compared to patients with normal cognition.