Journal of Alzheimers Disease & Parkinsonism
Open Access

Abstract

It is estimated that 30-50% of People with Dementia (PWD) suffer from significant depression. This fact indicates that for most PWD, depression occurs at the same time as cognitive decline. Research explains that, this happens because PWD cannot run their daily activities independently and they (tend to) forget many essential memories, such as their family. It is also known that the risk of depression is higher for highly educated people. This research was conducted with the intention to find the correlation between depression score and global cognitive score in 42 PWD using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) to assess the symptoms of depression and the global cognitive score, respectively. PWD included in this research were only those who have an MMSE score between 17 and 23 (mild cognitive impairment) and an MADRS score below 34 (no depression, mild depression and moderate depression). Mild depression occurred in 41 out of 42 subjects (97.6%) and the global cognitive score mean was 19.53. Therefore, depression score is strongly correlated to the the global cognitive score (r=0.647; p<0.001). It is assumed that many PWD are aware of their declining cognitive ability often leading to insecurities because of their condition. Some PWD experienced apathy, loss of appetite and sleep disturbance. Because of these discoveries, it was concluded that PWD who have higher global cognitive scores also have higher depression scores.

Biography

Ivan Pradhana is a Medical student in the University of Indonesia, Indonesia. He has collaborated with other researchers and successfully published a conference paper.
Email:pradhanaivan14@gmail.com