Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2011 Feb;19(2):99-103. doi: 10.1097/jgp.0b013e318202fc8a.
Since being proposed as a unique subtype of late-life depression (LLD), the vascular depression hypothesis has received considerable research attention. Although this effort has generated considerable empirical support for the validity of the subtype, fundamental questions remain including how the illness is defined, whether cerebrovascular disease and executive dysfunction (ED) define two separate entities or one underlying subtype, and whether ED is responsible for poor response to antidepressant treatment. In this guest editorial, we explore these and other issues (i.e., the role of personality and social support, psychosocial treatments targeting cognitive abilities frequently impaired in LLD) using a number of important papers that are either directly or indirectly related to the vascular depression hypothesis. In so doing we highlight a range of critical problems facing the vascular depression hypothesis and the effort to establish the illness as a unique diagnostic entity in late-life.
自被提出作为一种独特的老年期抑郁症（LLD）亚型以来，血管性抑郁假说已经引起了相当多的研究关注。尽管这一努力为该亚型的有效性提供了相当多的经验支持，但仍存在一些基本问题，包括疾病的定义、脑血管疾病和执行功能障碍（ED）是否定义为两个独立的实体或一个潜在的亚型，以及 ED 是否导致对抗抑郁治疗的反应不佳。在这篇特邀社论中，我们使用了一些与血管性抑郁假说直接或间接相关的重要论文，探讨了这些和其他问题（即人格和社会支持的作用、针对 LLD 中经常受损的认知能力的心理社会治疗）。这样做，我们强调了血管性抑郁假说以及将该疾病确立为老年期独特诊断实体所面临的一系列关键问题。
