Memory complaints and memory deficits in young and old psychiatric inpatients

Memory complaints and memory deficits were investigated in 206 consecutively admitted psychiatric inpatients at the University of Iowa Psychiatric Hospital. Forty-five percent of patients over age 60 years and 29% of patients less than 60 years old had severe memory complaints. Patients with complaints of memory loss were no more likely than patients without such complaints to have a memory deficit. In patients over age 60 years, memory complaint was more common in depression than in dementing and amnestic disorders (73% v 43%), while in younger patients memory complaint was slightly more common in dementing and amnestic disorders than in depression (57% v 41%). Increasing age was significantly correlated with increasing likelihood of memory complaint for depressed patients but not for nondepressed patients. As a result of these findings, memory complaint was found to be a statistically significant marker for depression in the elderly (sensitivity = 73%, specificity = 75%) but not in younger patients. Our results confirm the clinical observation that memory complaints are a useful marker for depressed states in the elderly.