Late-life Depression and Risk of Vascular Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Community-based Cohort Studies

Overview

Journal Br J Psychiatry

Publisher Cambridge University Press

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2013 May 3

PMID 23637108

Citations 464

Authors

Breno S Diniz

Meryl A Butters

Steven M Albert

Mary Amanda Dew

Charles F Reynolds 3rd

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Late-life depression may increase the risk of incident dementia, in particular of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.

Aims: To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the risk of incident all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia in individuals with late-life depression in population-based prospective studies.

Method: A total of 23 studies were included in the meta-analysis. We used the generic inverse variance method with a random-effects model to calculate the pooled risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia in older adults with late-life depression.

Results: Late-life depression was associated with a significant risk of all-cause dementia (1.85, 95% CI 1.67-2.04, P<0.001), Alzheimer's disease (1.65, 95% CI 1.42-1.92, P<0.001) and vascular dementia (2.52, 95% CI 1.77-3.59, P<0.001). Subgroup analysis, based on five studies, showed that the risk of vascular dementia was significantly higher than for Alzheimer's disease (P = 0.03).

Conclusions: Late-life depression is associated with an increased risk for all-cause dementia, vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease. The present results suggest that it will be valuable to design clinical trials to investigate the effect of late-life depression prevention on risk of dementia, in particular vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

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