Neuropsychological functioning in depressed versus nondepressed participants with Alzheimer's disease.
Differences in cognitive functioning between participants with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) reporting depressive symptomatology (AD-Dep; n = 37) and a control group of nondepressed participants with AD (AD-Con; n = 98) were investigated based on hypothesized impairments of attention/concentration, psychomotor speed, and simple motor speed. Groups did not differ in age, education, overall severity of dementia, auditory comprehension, or use of psychotropic medications. AD-Dep participants performed significantly more poorly than AD-Con participants on 3 of the 13 measures on which they were hypothesized to exhibit greater impairment (WAIS-R Block Design, WAIS-R Digit Symbol, and speeded motor programming); and there were trends toward poorer performance on four additional measures (WAIS-R Object Assembly, WAIS-R Picture Arrangement, WAIS-R Digit Span-backward, and letter fluency). There was only one significant effect for the 13 measures on which no group differences were hypothesized; the AD-Dep participants unexpectedly obtained better WMS-R Logical Memory delayed recall scores than the AD-Con participants. Finally, AD-Dep participants exhibited an unexpected pattern of greater right hand advantage on the Finger Tapping Test.
Wefel
J S
JS
Department of Psychology, University of Houston, TX 77204-5341, USA. jwefel@bayou.uh.edu
Hoyt
B D
BD
Massma
P J
PJ
D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011596:Psychomotor Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index