title: Relationship of family and personal history to the occurrence of depression in persons with Alzheimer's disease.
abstract: The authors tested the associations of family history and personal history of depression with mood disorders among patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD; N=161). Considered individually, a positive family history and a positive personal history each conferred increased risk for depression in AD. Conjointly, neither family nor personal history accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in syndromal depression after the onset of AD. Most depressed AD patients in this sample did not have a positive family history or a previous episode of depression. Our understanding of the etiology and course of depression and dementia may be augmented with further neuropsychological and brain-imaging studies of the neuropathological substrates shared by these illnesses.
authors.affiliation: University Alzheimer Center, Department of Neurology and Research Institute, University Hospitals of Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University, OH, USA. zab@po.cwru.edu
authors.forename: Z A
authors.initials: ZA
authors.lastname: Butt
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Strauss
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology*; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012008:Recurrence; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index