Department of Psychiatry, Mental Health & Old Age Psychiatry, Charité Medical University, Berlin, Germany.
Psychiatry Res. 2010 Mar 30;176(1):26-9. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2008.06.045. Epub 2010 Jan 12.
In everyday life, we often estimate rather than know. It was the goal of this study to assess the effect of depressed mood on cognitive estimation in old age. Cognitive estimation was performed in 44 subjects with major depressive disorder (MDD; DSM-IV) and 48 age-matched healthy subjects (HS). Severity of depressive symptoms was rated with the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS, mean=18.6+/-S.D. 4.85). Estimation tasks comprised the dimensions length (coin diameter), weight (pile of paper), quantity (number of marbles in a glass jar), and time (estimation of time it takes for a marble to roll down a marble track both before and after having observed it). Other than the procedure followed in previous tests on cognitive estimation, the tasks were performed by observing objects rather than pictures thereof. MDD patients overestimated time (before and after observation) and underestimated quantity. Cognitive estimation was not correlated to measures of frontal functioning or semantic knowledge. We conclude that MDD patients in old age are impaired to some extent in cognitive estimation and in the ability to correct themselves, deficits that are likely to affect the performance of everyday activities.
在日常生活中，我们经常进行估计而不是确切地知道。本研究的目的是评估抑郁情绪对老年人认知估计的影响。认知估计在 44 名患有重度抑郁症（DSM-IV）的受试者和 48 名年龄匹配的健康受试者中进行。抑郁症状的严重程度用蒙哥马利-阿斯伯格抑郁评定量表（MADRS，平均值=18.6+/-S.D. 4.85）进行评定。估计任务包括长度（硬币直径）、重量（一摞纸）、数量（玻璃罐中的弹珠数量）和时间（估计弹珠在观察前后从弹珠轨道上滚落所需的时间）等维度。除了之前关于认知估计的测试中遵循的程序外，这些任务是通过观察物体而不是图片来完成的。MDD 患者高估了时间（观察前后），低估了数量。认知估计与额叶功能或语义知识的测量无关。我们的结论是，老年 MDD 患者在认知估计和自我纠正能力方面存在一定程度的障碍，这些缺陷可能会影响日常活动的表现。
