EPISODIC REMEMBERING IN A POPULATION-BASED SAMPLE OF NONAGENARIANS - DOES MAJOR DEPRESSION EXACERBATE THE MEMORY DEFICITS SEEN IN ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

Population-based samples of normal old adults and people with major de pression (MD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and coexisting MD and AD (MD + AD) between 90 and 100 years of age were assessed in face recognitio n, word recall, and object recall. Results indicated a consistent patt ern across tasks: no differences between the normal old and the MD par ticipants or between the AD and MD + AD participants in any task, a cl ear performance decrement in the AD and MD + AD participants in all ta sk variables reflecting long-term episodic memory, and no group differ ences in those variables reflecting short-term memory. These data sugg est that depression in very old age may not exacerbate the episodic me mory deficit that accompanies AD. Further, differences between normal old and MD participants in episodic memory tasks appear to be negligib le among the oldest old. The general lack of effects of MD may be due to the fact that those symptoms of this disease that are most likely t o affect memory functioning (e.g., loss of energy concentration diffic ulties) are common in AD as well as in nondepressed people in the 10th decade of life.