title: Cognitive decline in elderly bipolar disorder patients: a follow-up study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Older individuals with bipolar disorder may exhibit greater cognitive decline over time compared to mentally healthy elderly individuals. We aimed to investigate neurocognitive performance in bipolar disorder over a period of two years.
  
  
  METHODS
  A comprehensive neuropsychological test battery was applied at baseline and two years later to 65 euthymic elderly outpatients with bipolar disorder (mean age = 68.35, range: 60-90 years) and to a demographically comparable sample of 42 healthy elderly controls. A general linear model was used to measure changes over time for the two groups. The impact of baseline illness characteristics on intra-individual change in neurocognitive performance within the bipolar group was studied by using logistic regression analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At baseline and at follow up, bipolar disorder patients performed worse on all neurocognitive measures compared to the healthy elderly group. However, there was no significant group-by-time interaction between the bipolar disorder patients and the comparison group.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although older bipolar disorder patients have worse cognitive function than normal controls, they did not have greater cognitive decline over a period of two years.
authors.affiliation: GGZ inGeest, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. s.schouws@ggzingeest.nl
authors.forename: Sigfried Ntm
authors.initials: SN
authors.lastname: Schouws
authors.forename: Max L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Stek
authors.forename: Hannie C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Comijs
authors.forename: Annemieke
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dols
authors.forename: Aartjan Tf
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Beekman
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D018692:Antimanic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000188:drug therapy; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005853:Geriatrics; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
chemical_list: D018692:Antimanic Agents