Long-Term SSRI Treatment May Delay Progression From Mild Cognitive Impairment to Alzheimer ’s Dementia

Long-term treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) may benefit elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and a history of depression, even after depressive symptoms have resolved, suggested astudy published inAJP in Advance.In patients with MCI and a history of depression, long-term treatment with SSRIs (for more than four years) was associated with a delayed progression to Alzheimer ’s dementia by about three years, compared with those who used SSRIs only short term or who had no treatment.Delaying the progression from MCI to Alzheimer ’s dementia would not only reduce the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease, but also cut health insurance costs, wrote Claudia Bartels, Ph.D., of the University of Medical Center Gottingen, in Germany, and colleagues.Bartels and colleagues analyzed data on 755 nondepressed adults aged 55 to 90 who were culled from the multicenter Alzheimer ’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Participants were categorized at baseline as cognitively normal control subjects, patients with MCI, and patients with Alzheimer’s dementia and were comprehensively reassessed every six months or annually for progression from cognitively normal to MCI o r Alzheimer’s dementia, or from MCI to Alzheimer’s dementia.Of the 755 participants in the analysis, 532 were allocated at baseline to the “no history of depression–no antidepressants” group and 223 to the “history of depression” group. Of the latter group, 60 we...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ajp in advance Alzheimer's antidepressants Claudia Bartels cognition dementia depression health care costs MCI SSRI Source Type: research