Influence of education and depressive symptoms on cognitive function in the elderly.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence that education and depression have on the performance of elderly people in neuropsychological tests.


METHODS
The study was conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of São Paulo School of Medicine, Hospital das Clínicas. All of the individuals evaluated were aged 60 or older. The study sample consisted of 59 outpatients with depressive disorders and 51 healthy controls. We stratified the sample by level of education: low = 1-4 years of schooling; high = 5 or more years of schooling. Evaluations consisted of psychiatric assessment, cognitive assessment, laboratory tests and cerebral magnetic resonance imaging.


RESULTS
We found that level of education influenced all the measures of cognitive domains investigated (intellectual efficiency, processing speed, attention, executive function and memory) except the Digit Span Forward and Fuld Object Memory Evaluation (immediate and delayed recall), whereas depressive symptoms influenced some measures of memory, attention, executive function and processing speed. Although the combination of a low level of education and depression had a significant negative influence on Stroop Test part B, Trail Making Test part B and Logical Memory (immediate recall), we found no other significant effects of the interaction between level of education and depression.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study underscore the importance of considering the level of education in the analysis of cognitive performance in depressed elderly patients, as well as the relevance of developing new cognitive function tests in which level of education has a reduced impact on the results.
Avila
Renata
R
Old Age Research Group (PROTER), Department and Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil. avilarenata@uol.com.br
Moscoso
Marco Antonio Aparício
MA
Ribeiz
Salma
S
Arrais
Jony
J
Jaluul
Omar
O
Bottino
Cassio M C
CM