[Characteristics of cognitive impairment in depressive elders in Shanghai community]

To explore the characteristics of cognitive impairment in depressive elders in Shanghai.

A total of 1 068 participants randomly selected from 4 communities in Shanghai underwent neuropsychiatric and psychiatrists clinical assessment. Among them, 102 depressive ones with a score of geriatric depression scale (GDS) > 10 and 102 non-depressive ones with a score of GDS ≤ 10 were selected as depression and non-depression groups respectively. The SPSS statistic software V17.0 was used.

Significant differences existed between the depressive and non-depressive patients in the total score of Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) (t = 2.353), trail making B task (t = 2.236), attention (t = 2.621), sustained attention (t = 2.381), calculation (t = 2.612) and fixed orientation (t = 2.259) (P < 0.05). The negative correlation had significant inter-group differences in the total score of MoCA (r = -0.142), attention (r = -0.161), sustained attention (r = -0.160), calculation (r = -0.150), fluency (r = -0.156), delayed recall (r = -0.175) and orientation to place (r = -0.172) (P < 0.05). Cognitive impairment in depression group had lower scores than non-depression group in the total score MoCA (14.9 ± 7.3 vs 17.5 ± 6.7), attention (1.1 ± 0.8 vs 1.4 ± 0.8), calculation (1.9 ± 1.2 vs 2.3 ± 1.1) and fixed orientation (1.7 ± 0.7 vs 1.8 ± 0.5) (P < 0.05).

In depressive elders, cognitive impairment occurs in multiple cognitive domains of attention, executive function and orientation to place. There is a negative correlation between GDS score and MoCA. The higher GDS score, the worse cognitive function.