Dementia May Be Signaled By Apathy, Depression

Apathy and symptoms of depression are independently associated with incident dementia among older adults, according to a recent study.

For their study, the researchers analyzed data on 3427 community-dwelling older adults aged 70 to 78 years who were enrolled in the Prevention of Dementia by Intensive Vascular Care trial. Follow-up lasted 6 years.
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Adjudication committee-confirmed clinical diagnoses established the presence of dementia during follow-up. Cox regression analyses were performed to calculate hazard ratios (HRs), and the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) item on memory complaints was evaluated separately.

Overall, 232 (6.8%) participants developed dementia. Following adjustment for various factors, apathy symptoms were found to be associated with dementia (HR 1.28). The presence of depressive symptoms was also linked to dementia with (HR 1.12) or without (HR 1.16) symptoms of apathy, but not after full adjustment or removing the GDS item on memory complaints.

“Apathy and depressive symptoms are independently associated with incident dementia in community-dwelling older people,” the researchers concluded. “Subjective memory complaints may play an important role in the association between depressive symptoms and dementia. Our findings suggest apathy symptoms may be prodromal to dementia and might be used in general practice to identify individuals without cognitive impairment at increased risk of dementia.”

—Christina Vogt

Reference:

van Dalen JW, Van Wanrooij LL, Moll van Charante EP, Richard E, van Gool WA. Apathy is associated with incident dementia in community-dwelling older people. Neurology. 2018;90(1). doi:https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000004767.