Depressive symptoms in late life: associations with apathy, resilience and disability vary between young-old and old-old.
OBJECTIVE
Prior research has found that disability and apathy are associated with late-life depression. However, the effect of age on these associations in "late-life," an ambiguous term encompassing all individuals typically older than 60 years, has not been examined. We investigated the association of depression with disability, apathy and resilience across the age range of late-life.


METHODS
One hundred and five community-dwelling elderly with moderate levels of disability were assessed using the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Hardy-Gill Resilience Scale, Starkstein Apathy Scale and IADL/ADL questionnaire. Multiple regression analysis was used to assess relationships between depression, disability, apathy and resilience, stratified by age (<80 vs. >80).


RESULTS
In the <80 year old subject group, resilience, apathy and disability scores (partial type III R(2) = 11.1%, 10.4% and 12.8%, respectively) equally contributed to the variability of GDS score. In contrast, in the >80 year old subject group, apathy (partial type III R(2) = 18.7%) had the greatest contribution to GDS score.


CONCLUSIONS
In elderly persons under age 80, resilience, apathy and disability all have relatively equal contributions to depression scores, whereas in those over age 80, depression is most highly correlated with apathy. These data suggest that depressive symptoms in elderly persons have different clinical features along the age spectrum from young-old to old-old.
Mehta
Mona
M
Department of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Whyte
Ellen
E
Lenze
Eric
E
Hardy
Susan
S
Roumani
Yazan
Y
Subashan
Perera
P
Huang
Wennie
W
Studenski
Stephanie
S
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D006801:Humans; D053609:Lethargy / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales