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Distinction of dementia and depression in various stages of the disease processes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2020
Abstract
Old age depression is often difficult to discriminate from dementia (particularly of Alzheimer type) – particularly cross-sectionally. Incident dementia is frequently associated with depressed mood and agitation; depression in the elderly goes together with executive and memory dysfunctions; associated psychotic symptoms and activity-of-daily-life dysfunctions are shared by both conditions as well as major risk factors as vascular and metabolic factors. Frequently both syndromes are “masking” each other; depression may furthermore present as the first clinical sign of Alzheimers disease.
Yet, both clinical syndromes/disorders emerging from quite different are pathogenic neurobiological mechanisms with differentiating neuropsychological, – imaging and – chemical features. Clinical tools can be derived and enable accurate differential diagnosis. Thus, the distinction between both syndromes is a first instance for biomarker supported differential diagnoses in psychiatry.
The author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.
- Type
- S67
- Information
- European Psychiatry , Volume 33 , Issue S1: Abstracts of the 24th European Congress of Psychiatry , March 2016 , pp. S39
- Copyright
- Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2016
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