Depression Over Adulthood May Increase Risk of Dementia

Adults diagnosed with depression are more likely to be subsequently diagnosed with dementia, according to astudy published today inJAMA Neurology.“This association persisted when the time elapsed from the [date of depression diagnosis] was greater than 20 years and when depression was diagnosed in early, middle, or late life,” wrote Holly Elser, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues. “Our results therefore sugges t that depression is not only an early symptom of dementia but also that depression is associated with an increase in dementia risk.”The researchers used Danish health registers to identify adults diagnosed with depression between 1980 and 2017. Each person was matched with five adults of similar age and demographics who did not have a depression diagnosis. These people were then followed up until the occurrence of a dementia diagnosis, emigration, death, or the study cutoff date of December 31, 2018.The final sample included 246,499 adults (average age, 50.8 years; 64.7% women) with depression and nearly 1.2 million adults who did not have depression. Two-thirds of the adults with depression were diagnosed before age 60. Among those with a depression diagnosis, 5.7% were subsequently diagnosed with dementia; in the comparison cohort, 3.2% were subsequently diagnosed with dementia.In the overall group, the risk of a dementia diagnosis was 2.41 times higher in adults with depression compared with those without depression. When Elser and...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: adulthood antidepressant dementia depression JAMA Neurology risk of dementia treatment Source Type: research