College of Health and Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, 320D Biobehavioral Health Building, University Park, Pennsylvania, PA, 16802, USA.
College of Nursing, Pennsylvania State University, 201 Nursing Sciences Building, University Park, Pennsylvania, PA, 16802, USA.
BMC Geriatr. 2020 Mar 2;20(1):57. doi: 10.1186/s12877-020-1451-1.
Memory complaints and depressive symptoms are frequently associated in older adults and both serve as potential indicators of future cognitive decline. However, the temporal ordering of the development of these two symptoms remains unclear. The goal of the current study was to examine concurrent and temporal relationships between memory complaints and depressive symptoms in older adults.
Data were drawn from two longitudinal, nationally representative datasets and included cognitively intact older adults aged 65 and over. The datasets in the current study were from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using an integrative analytic framework, we tested bidirectional temporal relationships between memory complaints (memory ratings and perceived memory decline) and depressive symptoms over 6 to 9 years of data in over 5000 older adults across these two samples.
Across both datasets, perceived memory decline predicted future depressive symptoms whereas memory ratings did not. Additionally, results showed that at times when depressive symptoms tended to be higher, memory complaints were also higher, but depressive symptoms did not predict future memory complaints. One finding that was inconsistent across datasets was memory ratings predicting depressive symptoms. After accounting for covariates, this relationship was only significant in one dataset.
Cognitively intact older adults who report memory decline may be at risk for developing depressive symptoms in the future. Furthermore, our findings highlight the importance of using immediate replication of results across datasets to determine the generalizability of conclusions.
记忆问题和抑郁症状在老年人中经常同时出现，两者都可能是未来认知能力下降的潜在指标。然而，这两种症状的发展顺序尚不清楚。本研究的目的是检验老年人记忆问题和抑郁症状的并发和时间关系。
数据来自两个纵向的、具有全国代表性的数据集，包括认知功能正常的 65 岁及以上老年人。本研究的数据来自国家健康与老龄化趋势研究（NHATS）和健康与退休研究（HRS）。使用综合分析框架，我们在两个样本中超过 5000 名老年人的 6 至 9 年的数据中，检验了记忆问题（记忆评分和感知记忆下降）和抑郁症状之间的双向时间关系。
在两个数据集，感知记忆下降预示着未来的抑郁症状，而记忆评分则没有。此外，结果表明，当抑郁症状趋于升高时，记忆问题也会升高，但抑郁症状并不能预测未来的记忆问题。一个不一致的发现是记忆评分预测抑郁症状。在考虑了协变量后，这种关系只在一个数据集中显著。
报告记忆下降的认知功能正常的老年人可能有未来出现抑郁症状的风险。此外，我们的研究结果强调了使用数据集之间的即时复制结果来确定结论的普遍性的重要性。
