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Clock tests in depression, Alzheimer's disease, and elderly controls
N Herrmann1, D Kidron, K I Shulman
1Department of Psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre.
International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine
|April 20, 1999
Summary
Elderly patients with depression performed similarly to controls on clock tests. However, Alzheimer's disease patients scored significantly lower, suggesting clock tests may help identify dementia in depressed individuals.
Area of Science:
- Gerontology
- Neurology
- Psychiatry
Background:
- Clock-drawing tests are standard for detecting cognitive impairment in older adults.
- Limited research exists on the performance of elderly individuals with depression on these tests.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the performance of elderly patients with major depression to those with Alzheimer's disease and healthy controls on clock-drawing, copying, and reading tasks.
- To assess the utility of clock tests in differentiating depression from dementia in the elderly.
Main Methods:
- A comparative study involving 33 patients with major depression, 42 with Alzheimer's disease, and 30 age-matched controls.
- Performance evaluation using clock-drawing, copying, and reading tests.
Main Results:
- Alzheimer's disease patients exhibited significantly lower scores across all clock test measures compared to both depressed patients and controls (p < 0.05).
- No significant differences were observed between patients with depression and controls in quantitative scores or qualitative errors on the clock tests.
Conclusions:
- Clock tests may serve as a valuable tool in distinguishing between depression and underlying dementia in elderly populations.
- The findings suggest that clock tests alone may not reliably detect cognitive deficits solely due to depression.